MPs in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have slammed the current government’s claims to be ‘the greenest ever,’ and demanded the coalition begin a programme of action to factor nature into its decision-making processes.

The Efra Committee, a cross-party group of MPs presided over by Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP for Thirsk, made its pronouncements today after releasing a report on its inquiry into the Natural Environment White Paper, which was published by the government last year.

image expired

The government’s Environment White Paper recommended taking nature into account in all policy decisions, largely through employing the concept of ‘ecosystem services’; monetising aspects of the natural environment that deliver benefits to humans, including insect pollination, clean water and air and carbon sequestration.

The Efra committee is inclined to agree with the government’s findings on ‘ecosystem services’, but criticised its lack of action in putting the White Paper’s recommendations into practice. The committee today revealed that, more than one year on from the White Paper’s publication, Defra has failed to set out clear plans or made a commitment to factor the services nature provides into government decision making.

Committee Chair Anne McIntosh said, "Our natural environment supplies us not only with food and materials but also with vital services that ensure society’s well-being, such as clean air and water, soil nutrients and recreational spaces. These ecosystems services are worth billions of pounds to the UK economy and we cannot afford to let government policies ignore them." 

She continued, "It should not be solely the preserve of the public sector to protect and enhance nature. Significant funding can be harnessed from the private sector, for example to help prevent flooding and to provide clean water supplies. But Government must act now to set up the right regulatory frameworks to support such payments."

In its report, the Efra Committee calls on senior government officials, including the Prime Minister, Deputy-Prime Minister, who was present at last month’s Rio+20 Summit, Cabinet Office and Treasury Ministers to lead a cross-Government campaign “to ensure that all government policy fully  values ‘natural capital’”.

The Efra committee said the government must:

• Publish an action plan with a timetable to deliver  each of the White Paper's 92 commitments
• Give planners and developers guidance on how the National Planning Policy Framework can be used to protect Nature Improvement Areas.
• Fully assess the benefits as well as the costs of environmental regulation, to prevent a perception that environmental protection imposes a drag on the UK economy.
• Publish the Government’s response to advice from the Natural Capital Committee and require the NCC to make an annual report to Parliament.

The risky concept of ‘natural capital’

Previous commitments by the government, and other world leaders, including reforms at EU level and the outcome of the Rio+20 Summit, had been criticised by environmentalists as being watered down or paying lip service to environmental concerns. However, although the Efra Committee made its demands today in no uncertain terms, the issue of carrying out economic valuation on complex environmental systems, or small aspects of them which provide benefit to humans, and describing them as generating ‘natural capital,’ remains a dangerous standpoint.

Scientists from the United States have criticised the approach of applying financial values to natural phenomenon. Experts from the Ecological Society of America and Duke University last month questioned the now widely accepted practice of placing a dollar value on ‘ecosystem services,’ which they warned risks normalising the process of making decisions on purely financial grounds and consolidates the power of the market.

Emily Bernhardt of Duke University, North Carolina cautioned, "Natural ecosystems provide us with numerous services, not all of which are easily quantified. A challenge inherent in new ecosystem service markets is ensuring that commodifying one or more services doesn't lead to unintended consequences for non-target ecosystem attributes."

She pointed out that proxies for ecosystem services are often difficult to establish and may not match up and that other important services may be disregarded if they prove to be a more difficult sell. She also said maximizing the profitability or effectiveness of one aspect of an ecosystem may affect other essential ecosystem properties. The scientists warned that taking this approach to nature may be almost as dysfunctional as previous tendencies to ignore the natural environment.

Furthermore, the Efra Committee expressed support for ‘Biodiversity offsetting,’ although it said Defra must ensure that the long-term benefits from individual schemes are locked in so that habitats can be maintained for the future. However, the practice of buying the right to remove habitat has been widely criticised by environmentalists as damaging and is an inherent risk of reducing the natural world to a financial commodity.   

The authors of the international report ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’, warned that, “ecological processes are too complex and interlinked and present too many unknowns for us to [substitute abstract natural values for financial value] without risking grave damage.”

However, the Efra committee’s report did contain some progressive elements. The report’s authors condemned Defra’s “lamentable lack of ambition” in setting targets for phasing out peat extraction and the use of the unsustainable growing medium; it called for a progress review to be brought forward to next year.

The Efra MPs also called on Defra to set a target to increase public engagement with nature and increase funding for environmental projects. Echoing comments made by government policy watchdog the Environmental Audit Committee, the Efra report suggested the departments for health education define measurements to demonstrate how engagement with nature improves education as well as health and wellbeing.

Tweet