New, long-term environmental targets have been announced by the government today. The proposed targets are a cornerstone of the government’s Environment Act which passed into law in November last year. They will drive action by successive governments to protect and enhance our natural world.

image expired

The proposed targets cover water, air quality and the diversity of wildlife, including:

• Improving the health of our rivers by reducing nutrient pollution and contamination from abandoned metal mines in water courses and improving water use efficiency; and
• Cleaning up our air through a target to reduce exposure to the most harmful air pollutant to human health – PM2.5 – by over a third compared to 2018 levels; and
• Halting the decline in our wildlife populations through a legally binding target for species abundance by 2030 with a requirement to increase species populations by 10% by 2042.

Other targets include halving the waste that ends up at landfill or incineration by 2042 and increasing total tree cover by 3% by 2050. 

New targets on water quality will tackle the most significant pressures on the water environment and help unlock the most serious challenges to clean up England’s rivers and support our wider ambitions under the Water Framework Directive, and in the 25 Year Environment Plan for clean and plentiful water.

Targets to cut air pollutant PM2.5 will reduce exposure to the most harmful air quality across the country and in locations where levels are highest, with a 50% cut in acceptable levels going well above and beyond previous EU targets while remaining achievable.

This will now be subject to an eight week consultation period where government will seek the views of environment groups, local authorities and stakeholders.

The Environment Act put a key focus on driving forward nature’s recovery and the Government is also setting out today new proposals in a Nature Recovery Green Paper which will support our ambitions to restore nature and halt the decline in species abundance by 2030.

Govt are proposing to make the processes clearer and more certain for all users, with more consistency in how we protect our nature sites. A rationalised legal framework, supported by local expertise and scientific judgement, will enable our regulators to be confident in making conservation decisions most appropriate for each site and ultimately ensure a better, more coherent protected site system.

This could include new streamlined types of protected area, reducing the overlapping types of designation for nature sites, such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Special Areas of Conservation and Ramsar sites so that the public and stakeholders can see at a glance what’s protected and why.

Environment Secretary, George Eustice said:

“These proposed targets are intended to set a clear, long-term plan for nature’s recovery. In a post EU era we now have the freedom to move towards a system that focuses on nature’s recovery as well as its preservation, and which places more emphasis on science and less emphasis on legal process. This change in approach will help us in the pursuit of the targets we are setting under the Environment Act.”

Chair of Natural England, Tony Juniper, said:

“Our network of protected sites has been the backbone of England’s conservation effort for seven decades. It has been vital for hanging on to many special places, and many of our most vulnerable species, but we can and must do better. As Nature faces ever-increasing pressures, including from the effects of climate change, it is no longer sufficient to maintain the remnants of Nature that have survived, but to invest in large-scale recovery.

“Ambitious targets to halt the decline in species abundance and to increase the area of land and sea protected for Nature, backed by a range of new policies to meet them, means that we are in a strong position to shift up a gear – not only protecting what’s left but also to recover some of what has been lost.”

The government’s response to the Green Paper and targets consultation is expected to be published in early summer 2022.