Landowners and farmers will receive compensation for protecting nature through the planting of trees, restoring wetlands, and peat in one of the biggest farming reforms in fifty years.
Ministers assert that proposals to revamp agriculture subsidies today would transform 7411,000 acres of England in wildlife habitats within the next 20-years.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has unveiled the £2.4billion-per-year plan to replace the European Union’s common agricultural policy.
The creation of 15 nature preserves will help to save threatened species, such as the curlew and sandlizard. They will also restore rivers, lakes and streams.
Under the biggest farming reforms of 50 years, farmers and landowners are paid for their efforts to preserve nature.
Marsh fritillary, shrill carder and wild asparagus are some of the other endangered species that will benefit from these plans. These plans take effect in the coming year. They will begin with the restoration of 24,700 acres.
It claims that it will cut greenhouse gases by the UK. The equivalent of taking off 12,000 to25,000 diesel or petrol cars from the road. That’s a decrease of 25-50 kilogramonnes. Despite the proposals’ large scale, some 22.2million acres of farmland will remain, so officials do not expect food output will be affected.
Tom Bradshaw (NFU Vice President) said farmers were open to the idea of protecting nature and growing sustainable food.
But he added: ‘At a time when public support for British food and farming is at a high, our biggest concern is that these schemes result in reduced food production in the UK, leading to the need to import more food from countries with production standards that would be illegal for our farmers here.
‘This simply off-shores our production and any environmental impacts that go with it and would be morally reprehensible.’ The common agricultural policy, which subsidised farmers according to how much land they owned, had been criticised for providing incentives to destroy habitats.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has unveiled the £2.4billion-per-year plan to replace the European Union’s common agricultural policy. Pictured: The policy will help a curlew (one of many animals)
One scheme in the new plans, Local Nature Recovery, rewards farmers for ‘making space for nature’ in farms and countryside. These could be planting trees or restoring peatbogs, and even turning fields into wetland.
Landscape Recovery will bring about more radical changes. It will involve creating new nature reserves and floodplains, as well as creating forests or wetlands.
Both new programs follow the Sustainable Farming Incentive previously announced, which supported practices like reducing pesticide usage, improving soil quality, or rewarding farmers for their efforts to prevent river pollution.
The schemes aim to bring up to 60 per cent of England’s agricultural soil under sustainable management by 2030. With more than 3000 farmers testing them, the reforms are expected to make the most significant changes in farming and land management for 50 years. Today’s Oxford Farming Conference will see George Eustice, Defra Secretary, announce that applications for Landscape Recovery Projects are now open. He said: ‘We want to see profitable farming businesses producing nutritious food, underpinning a growing rural economy, where nature is recovering and people have better access to it.
One scheme in the new plans, Local Nature Recovery, rewards farmers for ‘making space for nature’ in farms and countryside. Pictured: A water vole
‘We are building these schemes together, and we are already working with over 3,000 farmers across the sector to test and trial our future approach.’ An early version of the Local Nature Recovery scheme will be on trial in 2023 with a nation-wide rollout from 2024.
Tony Juniper, chairman of government advisers Natural England, said: ‘More than two thirds of England is farmed and these reforms pave the way for those who manage the land to produce healthy food alongside other vital benefits, such as carbon storage, clean water, reduced flood risk, thriving wildlife and beautiful landscapes for everyone to enjoy.’
Dr Alexander Lees, senior lecturer in conservation biology at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: ‘Escaping from the clutches of the common agricultural policy, which has driven biodiversity loss across Europe by incentivising habitat destruction, represents a major opportunity to improve the state of UK nature.’
If the UK is serious in reversing declines in its diminishing species ‘we need to be racing towards the 300,000 hectare [741,000-acre] target as fast as possible,’ he added.
The new programs will all be voluntary, and farmers will decide which combination is best for them.
The creation of 15 nature preserves will help to save threatened species, such as the curlew (pictured), sandlizard, and water vole. They will also restore rivers, lakes and streams.
UK grants Leo charity £28k Protect the dwarf buffalo
By Helena Horton for the Daily Mail
Leonardo DiCaprio’s green campaign group has been given £28,800 of taxpayers’ cash to lobby for ‘rewilding’.
The charity backed by the Oscar-winning actor, who is worth an estimated £200million, received the grant to protect a species of dwarf buffalo called the Tamaraw in the Philippines by conserving land from development, allowing it to remain wild.
The sum appeared in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ accounts as ‘official development assistance’.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s green campaign group has been given £28,800 of taxpayers’ cash to lobby in order to protect a species of dwarf buffalo called the Tamaraw in the Philippines by conserving land from development
DiCaprio (47) launched Re:wild, a conservation project that has received large donations. According to its website the actor ‘has provided more than $100million (£75 million) in grants to a variety of programmes and projects’, with Re:wild described as ‘the latest undertaking linked to DiCaprio’s environmental activism’.
The star’s most recent film, Don’t Look Up, sees a deadly comet heading towards Earth in what many have interpreted as a metaphor for climate change. He said of his role: ‘I just felt like this was an incredible gift to be a part of a movie that encapsulated exactly what we’re going through.’
After speaking in Glasgow at Cop26 Climate Summit in November, this actor came under fire after he flew from New York City to Miami within a day.
A Defra spokesman said the projects it supports ‘focus on local action… to address unsustainable use, habitat degradation and loss, whilst delivering poverty reduction’.
DiCaprio (47) launched Re:wild, a conservation initiative that has received large donations.