Government Ministers cannot be trusted to protect nature reserves in this country - Yorkshire Post Letters

Former Environment Minister Therese Coffey is among 12 Conservative MPs who have tabled a Bill in Parliament that will transfer the power to create and protect nature reserves from Natural England to Government Ministers.

Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are the best sites in the country for wildlife and are protected by law from development or change of use that would damage their wildlife value.

Currently, Natural England is the Government’s statutory adviser on nature conservation and

designates protected sites based on scientific evidence.

Under the proposed bill, any decisions on SSSIs would instead be made by the Environment Minister, currently Steve Barclay.

83 wildlife organisations have joined together under Wildlife and Countryside Link to warn that nature protections could be lost for short-term political and financial considerations.

It should be remembered that Natural England stood alone in resisting the attempts of the

Government under David Cameron in 2010 to sell off our National Nature Reserves. This followed a plan to privatise the Forestry Commission’s forestry estate, selling all 650,000 acres of the nation’s forests, which met with such widespread public opposition that the sale was dropped.

DEFRA has already cut two-thirds of the funding for Natural England over a decade. The Chair of Natural England, Tony Juniper, told the House of Lords in 2022 that “between 2010-19 proactive work on SSSIs essentially stopped due to Government funding cuts”.

The impact of this has been that a third of SSSIs are now classed as declining.

Government Ministers, who have already overseen the shocking decline of our rivers and beaches, cannot be entrusted to safeguard these special places for nature and people.