RSPB Chief Executive Beccy Speight warns urgent action is needed as UK Government off track on key nature targets.
Three years ago, the world came together to agree a new plan to save nature. 195 countries, under the Convention on Biological Diversity, signed up to an ambitious and urgent mission to halt and reverse the global loss of nature by 2030.
This plan, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), laid out targeted actions for countries to take. Last week the UK Government reported on its own progress. The verdict: we’re way off track.
Honestly, it’s not a great surprise for anyone in the environmental sector, or indeed anyone who takes an interest in the natural world. Nature continues to be on the decline in the UK, and we are one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
The targets set out in the KMGBF are wide ranging and challenging because they need to be, from commitments relating to sustainable agriculture, to tackling pollution, to mobilizing finance for nature. But of the UK's 23 targets, 19 are off track, just 3 are on track, and progress towards the other is unknown.
These targets are there to conserve our countryside, forests, rivers, lakes and seas, stop much loved species like Puffins and Turtle Doves, falling into UK extinction, and to minimise the impacts of climate change. They aren’t small things to achieve - but they are all essential to our futures and those of the next generations.
Failure to reach these global targets is not a recent development. A variety of goals have been set over the last decade and more to respond to the growing urgency of the nature and climate crises, but each time the UK government drops the ball. In the last round of targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity, RSPB analysis showed that the UK had missed 17 out of 20 of its commitments. This is a pattern, not an anomaly. And as this continues, our international credibility on nature is also eroded away.
We know that the UK public cares deeply about nature – 43% of British people are more likely to vote for a party that prioritises nature conservation. Yet the UK is failing time and time again to deliver on the promises and global commitments we have made for nature, and for ourselves. If we are truly proud of our natural legacy this jarring juxtaposition must end.
Just in January, the UK Government’s own, previously withheld, national security assessment report highlighted that global biodiversity loss risks our national safety and security – food and water shortages, global climate impacts, economic instability, health threats and even global disorder. Quite simply, we need to prioritise nature if we are going to have a stable future by the end of this decade.
We know what’s needed next. Piecemeal actions are happening, but the UK is currently failing at the bigger picture. Over the next 5 years we must act with urgency, clarity, and with genuine investment. We must shift our focus and resolve on the natural world, at both an international level and domestically, delivering policies, funding, action and positive rhetoric that presents a government hell bent on changing the future trajectory for wildlife, wild places and vital natural resources.
Many people and organisations, civil society, businesses, local community groups, are actively doing their bit to curb biodiversity loss. It’s about time the Prime Minister met us halfway.
To find out about the specific actions that we're proposing the governments of the UK take to get back on track, check out our report here.
Beccy became the RSPB’s Chief Executive in August 2019. She joined the RSPB having been CEO at the Woodland Trust since 2014. She leads RSPB work with members, supporters, businesses and government, ensuring the charity continues to play an active role in nature recovery, sustainability, climate change, food and farming, planning and infrastructure, and much more.
