English Species Reintroduction Taskforce - Part 2

The good, the confusing, and the just plain worrying...

Following on from Evan's first blog where he summarised his time giving evidence to the EFRA (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee) as part of their inquiry on Species Reintroduction, in part 2, Evan summarises his thoughts on the rest of the inquiry.

The final hearing last week

I have listened to the 2-hour session on 21st March, when the chair of the English Species Reintroduction Taskforce (ESRT), Andy Clements (ex CEO of the British Trust for Ornithology) gave evidence, followed by Tony Juniper, chair of Natural England (NE) accompanied by John Holmes, NE’S Strategy director.

And, this is where I think it leave us.

The good

Everyone questioned agreed that species translocations and reintroductions done right offer major benefits for nature and people. And that delivering on government targets and policies including the 25 Year Environment Plan means building momentum on this aspect of nature recovery.

Andy Clements has provided assurance that the ESRT, whose membership was finally published shortly before the 3rd hearing covers lots of different areas of expertise (in terms of taxa as well as land management and ownership, social and environmental economic science, national and international conservation practitioners). He committed to drawing a broader stakeholder group together next.

He was also very clear that his personal integrity is tied to the ESRT being entirely independent without fear or favour despite their receipt of funding from DEFRA (more below) and secretariat provision from NE, who also sit on the group.

And, with a remit to provide objective evidence he also assured us that ESRT does not start with any initial “yes/ no” species list i.e. lynx and wolf will be considered alongside butterflies.

As a side note he also confirmed that he will be coming to see the KWT-Wildwood bison project.

The confusing

Both Natural England and ESRT, as one of the MPs spotted, seem to have very similar remits: to provide objective evidence to DEFRA (Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs) and/ or Ministers (who may, or may not, listen or act upon it).

We know that that NE and independent scientific advisors have been providing evidence to these parties for years on a number of fronts relating to wildlife where things have arguably gone very wrong e.g. with the badger cull (cited as a success by the NFU rep. in our hearing); and that other advice has either not been disclosed and/or seemingly pushed into the long-grass on multiple occasions despite being pretty overwhelmingly positive towards taking nature positive action e.g. beaver releases, as below.

So, is the ESRT going to just be another distraction mechanism that enables yet more prevarication? Is it really a Task Force – as one MP asked – or is it another talking shop?

The plain worrying

The UK’s bureaucracies don’t easily support doing ‘new’ ambitious things either for nature or many other aspects of life. Yet we now need to adopt lessons learnt from cutting-edge projects at home and abroad quicker than ever before. We do not have time to waste any more.

This applies throughout the cradle-to-grave process of reintroductions. It includes things like use of language e.g. talking about “human-animal co-existence” rather than the more negative “human-species conflict”.

And, the only way that this is going to happen is if ESRT and NE display a positive, collaborative, co-creation culture towards engagement with non-government stakeholders (and other departments across government) from the off.

This is a huge culture shift.  As I said in the first hearing the sad reality is that there is a massive “computer says no” culture at the heart of central NE at the moment. KWT is working on bison/ chough/ beaver/ pine marten, etc. and has a team that has already embedded European experience into the UK context. We have not yet seen any evidence of a shift in culture at NE, unfortunately.

We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore the UK’s nature for people, wildlife and climate adaptation. But NE seems to think that centralised control is a better option than working through the community of practice that has formed in the absence of leadership on this topic.

NE and Andy Clements both suggested that all translocations should be licensed. But, given the above institutional culture and bureaucracy it is easy to see how we could end up with NE becoming a blocker to good schemes, whilst ESRT provides advice to politicians who don’t listen or act on it.

It has taken 20 years to get to the point where – apparently – according to Tony Juniper we are awaiting a final ministerial approval on a mechanism for wild releases of beavers. We cannot wait another 20 years for other keystone species. If we do then nature recovery and ecosystems adapting to climate change and benefiting society will be seen as more past “blah blah”.

A more dispersed, decentralised model of implementation (as per local beaver advisory groups) provides the answer to moving at pace if NE and government can embrace this.

Finally, it seems as if the ESRT is only going to meet “a couple of times a year” and has a £50K annually renewable budget to include paying the chair’s time, the members expenses, any commissioned research and  - presumably – to engage stakeholders to – hopefully – co-create the management regimes that we/ Rewilding Britain/ NFU and CLA all agree are a pre-requisite for success. This is clearly not enough. Again the risk here is around paralysis by committee.

A ray of light?

Some statements were made during the enquiry about no beavers in lowland areas like the Somerset Levels and the Fens because they would flood farmers’ fields as if they were the objective “truth”. This suggests an adherence to old paradigms that don’t match up to the reality of locked in climate change, and the need for more sustainable farming aka that many of these areas may become unviable for farming within the next decade.

But, the wider conversation did include acknowledgement that beavers can provide water regulation benefits and that they could be part of a blended approach to future-proofing our landscapes providing critical infrastructure is prepared ahead of their arrival.

This keeps the door open for the right approach to scoping evidence on benefits of species like beaver at the appropriate level. Modelling these multiple societal co-benefits will, most likely, show how they outweigh localised economic costs.

And, it was also acknowledged that benign keystone and flagship species including plants like sphagnum and seagrass or Avon onion can provide ways to demonstrate societal benefits (e.g. locking up carbon) and engaging people to be supportive of species reintroductions and translocations can have broader benefits (much like KWTs rationale for working on red-billed chough reintroduction in the Canterbury area).

KWT stands ready to work with all the stakeholders, demonstrating what can be done now, taking action and learning by doing. We are already doing it.

If you missed Evan giving oral evidence at the Species Reintroduction inquiry in February, you can catch up here.