Blogs

We have been following the progress of the Whitson SSSI public inquiry which, in short, was hearing an appeal into a refusal to give retrospective planning permission for an aerodrome on Upfield Farm on the Gwent Levels in South Wales. We have now heard that the appeal has been refused.  The aerodrome is simply an example of unauthorised development.  Our primary concern was the possible impact of this developing airfield on the nearby SSSI and more widely across the Gwent Levels and Severn Estuary Special Protection Area.  The inspector found clear reasons for refusal without the need to come to a view on the potential impact on the area's wildlife.  The inspector's report did make it clear that this unauthorised development was out of keeping with the ancient landscape of the Gwent Levels.  All in all, this is an outcome that we welcome.   What of the future?  The Gwent Level's landscape, history and wildlife make it a fragile and special place, this decision couples with the recent dropping of the M4 relief road should signal a new future for the Levels - one that embraces its qualities and moves away from seeing it as an area ripe for unsustainable development.

We were dismayed this week to hear that the Romanian Senate of Parliament has thrown out a draft law that would have protected the irreplaceable natural environment of the Danube Delta.
 
The Danube Delta is one of the world’s largest wetlands, with over 100,000 ha of mires, lagoons, reedbeds, dunes and forest – a true wilderness that is home to a fantastic array of wildlife and is contains priority European habitats and hundreds of thousands of birds.  To give you a taste of how important this site is:- its designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a wetland site of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, a Special Protection Area under the EU Birds Directive and a proposed Site of Community Importance under the EU Habitats Directive!
 
The Delta is under threat, however, from uncontrolled tourism developments, road projects, unlicensed hunting and over-fishing.  A new law is required to protect the Delta’s natural environment, whilst allowing sustainable economic development to take place.
 
This latest decision is a heavy blow for the Danube Delta Administration, supported by SOR (BirdLife Romania), who have tried, and failed, three times since 2006 to harmonise the laws governing the Danube Delta with European legislation.  Each time the draft law has been blocked by Government ministries, suspended, or dismissed by the Senate of parliament. The latest attempt by some progressive members of parliament, backed by the Danube Delta Administration and SOR to get a new Danube Delta law began in April this year.  The decision to reject it confirms our impression that the Romanian Parliament is more interested in short-term economic gains than the long-term benefits that protection of the Delta would bring.

This also seems to be part of a worrying trend.  In October, the European Commission (EC) referred Romania to the European Court of Justice over its failure to designate a full network of Special Protection Areas under the EU Birds Directive.  The degradation of other protected sites around Romania by unnecessarily damaging development may become subject to further infringement actions by the European Court.

With this background, its even more important for us to continue to support SOR in its efforts to protect Romania’s wild places and to get a uniform and effective law to fully protect the Danube Delta.  Marina Cazacu, Danube Delta Casework Officer at SOR said ''In these dark days for Romania's precious wildlife, its good to know that we are not taking on this battle alone and we have the support of the RSPB and its members'.  Marina will continue to keep this blog informed as this important campaign continues.

Back on 28 September I promised that you would be amongst the first to know the outcome of our negotiations aimed at getting agreement on how the Highways Agency will safeguard stone curlews as part of their proposal to dual the A11.  Here's a link to the web page that tells you some of the background to the case.

Well, the news is very good (and hopefully you will see some of the media coverage).

I’m writing this as colleagues on the other side of the office are crafting the final words that will allow us to withdraw our objection to the Highways Agency’s proposals (though I will have delayed posting this until the ink is dry!)

So, what does all this mean for stone curlews (pictured) currently sunning themselves in North Africa?  The Highways Agency has agreed to deliver sufficient mitigation to ensure that the dualling of the A11 has no impact on the stone curlew population of the Brecks.  What does ‘deliver sufficient mitigation’ mean?  In essence, this will mean bringing a sufficient area of land in the Brecks into exactly the right condition for 11 pairs of stone curlews which will neutralise the predicted impact of the faster, busier and better-illuminated A11.  There is good evidence that these goggle-eyed nocturnal birds are badly affected by disturbance – hence the RSPB’s long-term concern with this proposal.

The stone curlews are getting a good deal, but it’s worth considering the wider implications of this result.  We simply would not have achieved this outcome without the Birds Directive.  The Breckland Special Protection Area is designated for these special birds so that planning and decisions on development proposals have to account for any likely effect – we should expect nothing else for our most important places for wildlife. 

They’re out – at last.

As I reported on 1 October, the Government has now published its national policy statements on energy. These statements will be crucial when the new Infrastructure Planning Commission makes decisions on proposals for new power stations, whether coal, nuclear or wind, in England and Wales. The decision was delayed by some weeks, apparently because ministers were finalising their policy on clean coal. You can read about our disappointment on that here.

The Government wants to know what we – and you – think, and we need to get comments back by 22 February next year. As expected, these statements and the supporting material are massive tomes and are going to take some digesting. Fortunately Planning Aid, an independent organisation which helps local communities to understand the planning system, has produced some handy summary leaflets and FAQs. Parliament will be taking a close look at the statements as well, so we’ll have a chance to make our views known to MPs as well. It will be Christmas before we know it, though, so we’ll have to get cracking.

Climate change and nuclear issues have been dominating the headlines. See this from the Telegraph, for example. We’ll be digging into the statements to see if they really help deliver a low carbon future. And we’ll be looking at the implications for special places for wildlife, especially of the proposed nuclear sites. We don’t think nuclear power is necessary, and many of these sites are near internationally-designated wildlife sites.

The good news is that proposals for a new nuclear power station at Dungeness, right next to the RSPB’s reserve, have been dropped. The Government recognises that it would be virtually impossible to avoid adverse impacts on the wildlife sites, and it also has concerns about coastal erosion and flood risk.

We’ll also be looking to see how thorough the public consultation will be – it’s no good just sticking stuff on a website and hoping people will reply. There are going to be a number of events around the country, and public exhibitions in all the places affected by nuclear proposals. More details on the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s website. If you’re reading this, please spread the word, and keep an eye out for further updates on our website and this blog.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Department for Transport has also published its national policy statements on ports – that will have to be the subject of another post!

 

I spent Friday with 90 very enthusiastic RSPB volunteers and staff members talking about climate change and the challenge it poses for all of life on earth (and yes that definitely includes us – but also everything else that shares this planet with us).

One of the great things about working for the RSPB is that we do make a difference – we’ve got a proud tradition of campaigning successfully to make things better for wildlife and thus better for us too.  The sheer scale and scope of the impacts of climate change is the biggest challenge many of us will have faced – so can our past successes give us hope that we can tackle it?  You bet they can!  And not just our past successes either, the Wallasea Island Wild Coast project gives you an idea of the scale of habitat creation that is possible, work that will provide new opportunities for wildlife to adapt to the inevitable changes that are already driving our changing climate.

We couldn’t have hoped to have pulled off Wallasea on our own and our partnership with Crossrail and the support of the Environment Agency has been essential.

And so it is with the bigger picture – the RSPB was a founder member of Stop Climate Chaos and we will be joining The Wave on 5 December 2009 when we will be gathering in London ahead of the Copenhagen UN Climate Summit.  We must show mass support for a better low-carbon future.  I will be there, will you? 

BirdLife International (the RSPB is the BirdLife Partner in the UK) has just published a handy round-up of news covering the Important Bird Area (IBA) programme.

One of the cornerstones of bird conservation world-wide is the identification of (IBAs).  The programme has already identified 11,000 areas in 200 countries – and still the work goes on.  The rigorous identification of IBAs is essential if they are to be effectively protected.  In Europe, over 3,600 IBAs have been identified and progress towards designating them as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) under the terms of the Birds Directive.  The IBAs identified by BirdLife International is a key consideration in helping member states to identify the location of Special Protection Areas, an approach that has been backed up by the European Court of Justice on several occasions.

In the UK the Government has developed its own guidelines for selecting SPAs.  This has resulted in a much smaller SPA network than indicated by the UK IBA network.  Even though the Government has been designating SPAs for 30 years we can still point to significant gaps in the network.  This isn’t just a paper exercise as without the designation rare, threatened and migratory birds are vulnerable to land use change and management.  There is still much to do on land but it is at sea that the gaps are most obvious and beyond the obvious risks to the seabirds involved, creates uncertainty in planning for the expansion of offshore renewable energy generation.

Bulgaria’s Ministry of the Environment has announced plans to sack all fifteen regional directors of the country’s environment inspectorates and national parks.  This dramatic and incisive move comes ahead of news that the European Commission (EC) is starting an infringement action against Bulgaria aimed directly at stopping the destruction of wildlife sites that are amongst the best and most important in the European Union.  This follows two already open infringements on similar grounds. 

These high-level posts have been filled with political appointees who oversaw a planning process that was consenting development in internationally important areas for wildlife – a symptom of poor decision-making by these regional bodies.  The plan is now to open up these posts to a conventional recruitment process.

 The Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) – with the support of the RSPB - has been working to try and protect Bulgaria’s huge areas of fantastic, untouched natural areas from a veritable stampede of windfarm, infrastructure and tourism developments.  Of course, a sustainable, planned development of the energy and tourism industries, which respected wildlife, would be welcome.  However, this is blatantly not happening.

 Since 2005, no fewer than 400 developments have been given planning permission within the Kaliakra Important Bird Area on the Black Sea coast, including no less than 223 wind turbines.  This staggering number of projects threatens permanently to destroy priceless steppe habitats which provide feeding grounds for the thousands of birds (including red-breasted geese and Dalmatian pelicans) that use the ‘Via Pontica’ migration route along the Black Sea coast.  This situation is sadly repeated in many other internationally important sites for birds in Bulgaria.

 

The infringement actions brought by the EC have been a key target for both the RSPB and BSPB – we welcome signs that our work is now starting to bare fruit.  Hopefully, this recent announcement by the Minister of the Environment is the start of a new policy by the Bulgarian government to respect European Union laws and protect its fabulous wildlife for future generations of Bulgarians and all of those that care about Europe’s finest wildlife.

 

 

 

The RSPB is the UK partner of BirdLife International.  One of the greatest contributions that the partnership continues to make to global efforts to conserve birds is the identification of the most important places for them.  We have a 'just what it says on the tin' name for them - Important Bird Areas (IBAs).  News has just been released by the BirdLife Partner is Australia, Birds Australia, of the publication of a new volume 'Australia's Important Bird Areas'.  The list of 314 sites covers a mere 44 million hectares, which is 21x the size of Wales or, alternatively, around 55 million football pitches.  Here's some more information.

The next challenge for conservationists in Australia, which is shared around the world, is ensuring the IBA network receives effective formal protection.  Almost half of this massive network is currently unprotected.  In the UK, despite having a thirty-year run up since the Birds Directive came into force, there is still a long way to go to convert knowledge of where the best places are into effective designations.  There has been some welcome progress in Scotland but there is a long way to go before the network is fit for purpose both on land and, especially, at sea.  Lets hope the Australian authorities have a sense of urgency to match the scale of their special places.

Here’s the first update from the Public Inquiry currently underway in Newport.

If you want to catch up with the story so far – you can read the first post.  In short, this Public Inquiry is now looking at an appeal into refusal of a retrospective planning application for development of an aerodrome which could affect the Newport Wetlands and nearby Severn Estuary through disturbance.

So, the Inquiry finally got underway with ecological evidence from the appellant’s expert witness that flights from the airfield have not had an impact on the birds of the Newport Wetlands and the Severn estuary.  On cross-examination, two key issues came out.  He acknowledged the potential for aircraft to cause disturbance to birds, stating that without conditions, there is the potential for increasing use of the airfield to cause disturbance to birds.  In addition he admitted that he had not personally seen aircraft from the disputed airfield over-flying the key sites (which they currently can, and on occasion, do) and the levels of disturbance that this causes.

Day one ended with Newport City Council building a case that that the appellant had failed to show that the development would not have a ‘likely significant effect’ on the important bird populations nearby.  The term ‘likely significant effect’ is one of those critical terms that influence how planning matters affecting our most important wildlife sites (such as the Severn Special Protection Area) will go.  If you can’t show that your proposal (or in this case your already built aerodrome) won’t have a likely significant effect, then this has specific consequences under the terms of the Nature Directives.  In particular, whether there is a need to carry out an Appropriate Assessment, which is an analysis that will determine whether a plan or project will have an adverse effect.

The second day featured the appellant’s planning consultant, agreeing (under cross-examination) that an Appropriate Assessment was necessary.  This helpful acknowledgement moved the focus of the Inquiry onto the conditions that would need to apply to the operation of the airfield to avoid the risk to birds – and whether these were adequate or enforceable.

With the RSPB’s expert witness about to take the stand the Inquiry was left with the question that the appellants’ suggested conditions might not provide enough certainty to ensure that there would be no adverse effect on the SPA.

Step forward Dr Tony Prater.  Tony has worked for the RSPB for 30 years and prior to that established the Birds of Estuaries Inquiry that was set up in response to, amongst other things, the proposed third London Airport on Maplin Sands in the Thames.  He is a leading authority on waterfowl and wetland conservation and played a key role in developing the Newport Wetlands reserve.

His evidence built the case that you could not safely say that there would be no adverse effect based on the inadequate data provided by the appellant. While conditions on the use of the airfield could ensure that the adverse effect is avoided, how enforceable and how reliable they are remains a key question for the Inquiry. 

To be continued …

 

Over the last five years we have been working hard to support our Polish Partner OTOP (BirdLife in Poland) with their Via Baltica campaign. Key Natura 2000 sites in north-east Poland are under threat from a series of road projects on this international road corridor, which will link Helsinki to Warsaw via Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The corridor upgrade is taking place as a series of separate projects rather than being planned in a strategic way.

But today there is good news. The Polish Council of Ministers has taken a strategic decision on a new route for the Via Baltica expressway based on the recommendations made by experts and the findings of a Strategic Environmental Assessment. This new route will avoid damaging three Natura 2000 sites: the Biebrza Marshes, and the Knyszyn and Augustow Primeval Forests.

The decision is a major step forward for the conservation of Poland’s unique nature and represents a significant move in the right direction towards the proper implementation of Polish and European environmental legislation.

But our work is not over – unfortunately this decision does not automatically halt the current road construction inside Kynszyn Forest or other environmentally harmful road projects planned on the old route.

The wildlife of this region is particularly varied with lynx, wolf, beaver, crane and elk having key populations here. Added to this, the aquatic warbler and greater spotted eagle are two birds at risk of global extinction which have their greatest populations within the European Union in this landscape of forests, valleys and marshes.

What needs to happen next? The Polish authorities must implement their decision by ensuring that the Via Baltica is constructed on the new route and must stop the current piece-meal upgrades. With the new route for the Via Baltica corridor settled there is no need to continue with these large scale projects on the old route which will needlessly damage Natura 2000 sites.

Read more about the Via Baltica on our Saving Special Places page

It’s forty years since proposals to create London’s (then) third airport in the Thames stimulated the conservation movement to get its act together and start to gather the data that has become the bedrock of campaigns to protect some of our best places for wildlife from damage.  The Birds of Estuaries Inquiry became part of today's Wetland Bird Survey

Then it was a site off the Essex coast at Maplin Sands.  Forty years on and the engineer’s plans and schematics are sketching another Thames airport, further out but potentially home to six runways and associated infrastructure pushing fingers of development into the coast’s of both Essex and Kent.

This is the so called ‘Boris Island’ – the proposals driven by the Mayor of London have spawned much ridicule but continue to attract the attention of serious-minded people.  It is too easy to dismiss such an initiative as outlandish and fanciful, too easy to lampoon it as yet another opportunity for trough-snouted consultants to spend years revising the costs, impacts and uncertainties upwards to a point where the project collapses under the weight of its sheer unsustainability.

In many ways, this proposal takes the Greater Thames back to an earlier era of unnecessary conflict.  In recent years, there has been a welcome and refreshing culture of working with the grain of nature.  The London Array, the London Gateway port, the Thames Gateway with its innovative Parkland programme are just some examples. 

We at the RSPB are proud of our massive contribution to delivering a pathway to a sustainable Thames and proud of our projects on the coasts of Kent and Essex.  Central to all of this has been a clear recognition of the importance of the Thames, its internationally important wildlife and the clear legal protection that comes form the European Birds and Habitats Directives, you can read about some of work here.

The feasibility study eventually stumbled into the public gaze yesterday, but its ‘Can we build it? Yes we can!’ message had been well trailed.  We will respond, and we will respond in detail.  That it can be built is not and never has been the issue, critically is it the right thing to do?  The wrecks of airport proposals are scattered around the Thames, repeatedly this special place has been rejected as a site for an airport.  We will vigorously oppose this latest airport concept. 

The last airport proposal was at Cliffe in North Kent, it was only 7 years ago and the memories are fresh in the communities that would have been affected – the opposition to this concept is considerable and will grow as the full implications of the scheme become apparent, that is a strong reason for hope.

The timing of this proposal, as Government’s focus on Copenhagen, is at best unfortunate.  The Thames is the wrong place, but as we all grapple with the challenge of climate change this is most assuredly the wrong time to be proposing a six runway airport.

 

This blog has been running for just over a month.  Already some of the casework the RSPB is involved with has started to feature regularly in these posts, but it's a bit like a big school of dolphins, there are loads of them but at any one time only a few are visible above the surface.  You can find out more about our work to save special places here on a new set of webpages - there are Google maps and everything to help you find the cases you are interested in.

For the first time, since this blog started, the RSPB will be involved in a public inquiry.  The case revolves around a planning permission issued by Newport City Council in the late 1990s allowing the use of a grass landing strip for aircraft flown by the family and friends of the applicant.  The land involved was part of the Whitson Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) on the Gwent levels in South Wales.

Over time the operation grew, the runway was given a hard surface and buildings erected to house aircraft.  Once alerted to the breach of planning conditions, the local authority ordered the removal of the buildings and surfacing prompting the operator to apply for retrospective planning permission.  This was refused.

This chain of events triggered the need for a public inquiry which has already been started and adjourned when it became clear that the scale and range of activities underway went beyond the terms council’s original enforcement notice. Indeed the aerodrome development may even have failed to follow the terms of the original limited permission! 

The RSPB fully supports Newport City Council’s line (which is to seek closure of the aerodrome operation) and we will be giving evidence in relation to the potential for disturbance to the nearby Newport wetlands, the wider Gwent levels and the Severn Estuary Special Protection Area.

The inquiry re-convenes on 20 October – so book your ringside seat now!

Waiting to catch the Eurostar back from Brussels (I’ll come back to why I was there later), I caught up with this news item that highlights the importance of vegetated coastlines from mangroves to saltmarshes as part of the solution to tackling global warming.  This UN Environment Programme, Food and Agriculture Organisation and UNESCO report calls for a halt in the destruction of these habitats (currently running at 7% a year), here here to that.  But it got me thinking about our own Severn estuary.  

The RSPB’s profound concern about the colossal impacts of the five projects currently on the shortlist to generate power from the Severn is balanced by our determination to encourage meaningful effort into finding the most environmentally benign options for power generation.  The RSPB, together with a range of other organisations, has been pressing Government hard to ensure that the frontline five projects aren’t progressed at the expense of other emerging technologies that could provide a better option.  We welcomed the launch of the Severn Tidal Power Embryonic Technology Scheme (SETS) earlier this year.  In the first months of 2010 we will find out which, if any, of the projects funded under this scheme will join the frontline five.

It is the ‘big bad one’ the Cardiff – Western barrage that still continues to dominate the Severn tidal debate and we are all on tenterhooks awaiting the results of the studies into impact on the hydrology and geomorphology of the Severn (basically how large structures will affect how the Severn will work).  Barrage proposals, in the past, have often fallen under the weight of spiralling costs (£21 billion for the big bad one currently) and growing concern over the scale and uncertainty of their impacts. 

These studies are crucial to making the right decisions about the Severn and are the essential backdrop to assessing the new and emerging ‘embryonic’ technologies.  Yet delays in producing the findings will make life harder for the new kids on the block who are up against challenging deadlines to make their case to join the shortlist.  We will be watching this one closely over the next couple of months as the Severn Tidal Power project enters a critical phase.

 

The Tees estuary is one of those ‘against the odds’ places.  Large chunks of it have been lopped off for development yet nature has endured amongst the ship-breakers and chemical plants.  So, it’s good to be able to report some positive news.

Responding to pressure from Natural England and the RSPB, a housing developer in Hartlepool has revised their plans for 458 houses next to the shoreline. By pulling the houses back from the coast, their defences will no longer cause the loss of intertidal habitat. 

The risk was that rising sea levels would squeeze the life out the muddy, food-rich intertidal areas over the next few decades.  The modification of the design literally takes the pressure off the oystercatchers, redshanks and sanderlings that depend on this area each and every winter.

It’s a really welcome step, and shows that it is possible to have new development and protect the environment if the will is there.  The developer, working with the local Council has also come up with a package of mitigation measures to reduce the disturbance that all those houses - and all their dogs - will have on the birds there.  As is often the way, the devil is in the details, and the RSPB - contrary to a report in the local press - is maintaining its objection to the development until we are fully satisfied that there will be no extra disturbance to wintering waders. 

The Tees estuary is part of the Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast Special Protection Area and its status has been a key element in working towards a development design that delivers effective protection to yet another special place – you’ll have noticed that’s a regular message in this blog!

If you get the chance to visit the Tees - do visit The RSPB's Saltholme Wildlife Reserve and Discovery Park