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14 October 2011
Blue and yellow makes green, Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out shortly after winning power last year. He was promising that the coalition government would be the greenest government ever but today, WWT and 28 other environmental groups find that only two of 16 green pledges, both related to wildlife overseas, are on track.
Planning reform and development on floodplains, and the proposed badger cull are two stand-out failures the groups say, alongside the shambolic attempt to sell off forests.
Being green is all very well but blue should be the colour too, not just for the Conservative Party but to remind us of our precious wetlands too. The Nature Check report, published by the umbrella body Wildlife and Countryside Link, highlights the serious threats facing wetlands and wetland wildlife from some of the Government’s ill conceived policies. And with good reason.
The government’s Natural Environment White Paper, published in June, described the natural environment – of which wetlands are a big part - as the foundation of sustained economic growth, prosperity and well-being.
The UK National Ecosystem Assessment, published a month later, put the amenity value of living close to rivers, coasts and other waterways at up to £1.3 billion a year. Improvements to water quality from inland wetlands are worth up to £1.5 billion per year to the UK, the assessment added. Yet wetlands are one of our most threatened habitats.
Healthy wetlands are key to a thriving economy and can help provide long-term fixes for flash flooding, waster water management in towns and cities and the removal of pollutants in the wider countryside.
December’s Water White Paper, the Government’s much anticipated plan for water conservation and management should recognise this and put in place measures to retain and extend the healthy wetlands we have, restore others and create more elsewhere. It should put the right price on water to encourage sustainable use. If water is valued as it should be, our wetlands will be protected.
We need the same drive to protect our own wildlife that ministers have shown in safeguarding whales and elephants. WWT and everyone behind the Nature Check report are hoping that blue rather than yellow is still shading plans to be green.