Natural England

Sir Martin Doughty's Introduction

Welcome to the launch of Natural England's State of the Natural Environment Report 2008.

Meeting here in the Commonwealth Club, with its truly international membership, reminds me that that there are important events taking place all over the world at the present time, which put our particular priorities in the State of England's Natural Environment into perspective.

The natural disasters in Burma and China come strongly to mind of course. Closer to home, the EU Commission has today published its Common Agricultural Policy Health Check proposals, Irish farmers are making their views clear about the World Trade talks and seeking to influence the Irish EU vote, and the French Presidency later this year may set the scene for the Common Agricultural Policy of future years and its influence on the environment in member states.

But I would single out an event on the other side of the world as having the most profound effect on the environment - the resignation last week of the Brazilian Environment minister, which could lead to further massive destruction of the Brazilian rainforests with all the disastrous consequences that might bring to the natural environment world wide.

• Tomorrow is World Biodiversity Day - an excellent time for a review
• And last week the Living Planet Index revealed that biodiversity declined worldwide by 25% in the last 35 years. How is England's biodiversity faring?
• As statutory advisor on the natural environment we have brought together for the first time the evidence we have about the current state of our natural environment, our:
• landscapes
• flora and fauna
• freshwater and marine environments
• geology and soils.
• It also examines the benefits that the natural environment provides to us as individuals and as a society.
• It reviews the main pressures on the natural environment and looks at the success of some of the main responses to those pressures.
• England's natural environment is internationally important for its species and its habitats.
• We have internationally important populations of breeding seabirds and wintering waders and wildfowl, bats and oceanic lichens
• and one moss not recorded anywhere else in the world.
• 18% of the world's heathland is in England
• Nearly 20% of Europe's Atlantic and North Sea estuaries are in England.
• England's geology has very high international heritage status because of both its diversity and the history of geological research.
• The combination of habitats, geology and human influence helps create landscapes that are rarely found outside England, including ancient hedged landscapes and our hugely varied coastline.
• Our natural environment also makes an huge contribution to our quality of life and cultural heritage.
• It provides social benefits through contact with a rich natural environment, contributing to better health and wellbeing, giving pleasure to millions and helping community cohesion.
• And it provides economic benefits through tourism.
• Our natural environment is under pressure from a range of threats.
• Many of these threats have been evident for several decades:
• pressure from intensification of land and sea management and
• pressures arising from continuing economic development, such as land take, pollution and water abstraction.
• As a result over the last 50 years or so England's natural environment has suffered serious losses.
• Our farmland today is much less rich in wildlife
• Only 3% of our grasslands remain rich in native plants, and traditionally managed meadows are very rare.
• Arable land is now much poorer in wildlife. There has been a substantial decline in the distribution of arable flowering plants, with seven species going extinct.
• Some species are now more or less confined to protected sites, for example early spider, late spider and burnt orchids.
• There is particular concern over the state of the marine environment, where overfishing has led to the decline of both fish populations and fragile habitats such as reefs with their rare sea fans.
• The last decade has seen actions to tackle pressures on our natural environment. How successful have these been?
• Although we are broadly maintaining the character of England's landscapes, with only 20% showing signs of neglect, nevertheless within our landscapes there are significant problems.
• Lack of suitable woodland management is causing a 50% decline of our native woodland butterflies, as we can see on this graph.
• Our wetlands and open waters give us particular concern. Open waters are the only habitat not progressing towards the Government's 2010 target of 95% of SSSIs being in favourable or recovering condition - as shown here by the pale blue line on this graph.
• Declines in wetland quality have led to losses such as the virtual extinction of breeding snipe from lowland England outside of nature reserves.
• We are now also starting to see the impact of climate change, for example:
• on the coast, where habitats are being squeezed between our sea walls and the rising sea. There has been a 25% loss of saltmarsh in the south east of England (the red on this map showing the SSSIs that are in unfavourable condition as a result);
• and on land, with a range of species moving northwards and upwards, for example the mountain ringlet butterfly.
• However, where we target action we can make a difference.
• Agri-environment schemes have had success in maintaining the wildlife value of targeted habitats, for example in arable field margins, shown here.
• The overall condition of our most important wildlife sites (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) has improved dramatically, from 58.3% in 2003 to 80% at the end of 2007. And we have even managed to increase this to 82.7% since the compilation of this report.
• The long-term decline in many of our farmland birds is slowing thanks to more environmentally friendly farming, but clearly as this graph illustrates we have a long way to go in terms of their recovery of farmland specialist species (the green line).
• Species such as the red kite are recolonising their former range after successful reintroductions, and heathland birds such as nightjars and woodlarks are increasing thanks to better management of our heathland.
• Clearly only been able to skim the surface of the full report [wave around].
• This report provides a baseline against which future progress can be measured and importantly draws attention to areas that are in urgent need of action.
• We also recognise that there are areas where we need to improve the evidence base - for example, concerning marine ecosystems and public benefits from the natural environment.
• We can only do this through partnership working with key stakeholders and we look forward to developing a forward programme of evidence gathering in collaboration with others.
• Thank you to all of the contributors to the Report and we look forward to your feedback and suggestions for the next edition.
• I would now like to invite Helen Phillips to speak more specifically on the challenges that the evidence is highlighting and how we can all work together to meet these.