World-leading Environment Act becomes law

Through the Environment Act, announced by Defra this week, it aims to clean up the country’s air, restore natural habitats, increase biodiversity, reduce waste and make better use of resources.

It will halt the decline in species by 2030, require new developments to improve or create habitats for nature, and tackle deforestation overseas.

It will help to transition to a more circular economy, incentivising people to recycle more, encouraging businesses to create sustainable packaging, making household recycling easier and stopping the export of polluting plastic waste to developing countries.

These changes will be driven by new legally binding environmental targets, and enforced by a new, independent Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) which will hold government and public bodies to account for their environmental obligations.

NFU environment forum chair Richard Bramley said: “Alongside producing sustainable, climate-friendly food, farmers are custodians of the countryside and our industry has already embarked on a long journey of protecting and maintaining the iconic British countryside, carrying out huge amounts of work to enhance landscapes, benefit soils, water, and air quality, encourage wildlife, and reduce our impact on the climate as we make progress towards our net zero ambition.”

“Our interest in the development of the Environment Act has been to encourage food production and land management policies to go hand-in-hand. Measures for protecting and enhancing the environment must be joined up with policies that support farming’s ability to improve productivity and to manage volatility to ensure we have profitable, productive and progressive farm businesses, both now and in the future.

“One of key successes of our lobbying efforts over the passage of the Act through Parliament, has been the stipulation that conservation covenants need to be signed in deed. Conservation covenants are voluntary agreements between a landowner and a third party, which enable landowners to make long term commitments to conservation. Ensuring that these agreements are well-drafted and the parties to them understand fully the nature of the commitments they are entering into we believed to be vital to their success.”

“There are many aspects of the Act that will give rise to further consultation and engagement, including government’s ambition for new environmental targets. The NFU will continue to work across government, parliament and wider civil society to ensure that we realise our ambition to best support British farmers to protect our environment while continuing to produce high-quality, climate-friendly food to world-leading standards.”

Environment secretary George Eustice said: “The Environment Act will deliver the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth.”

“It will halt the decline of species by 2030, clean up our air and protect the health of our rivers, reform the way in which we deal with waste. The Environment Act includes a new legally binding target on species abundance for 2030, which will help to reverse declines of iconic British species like the hedgehog, red squirrel and water vole.”

“The Act will crack down on water companies that discharge sewage into rivers, waterways and coastlines. It will see a duty enshrined in law to ensure water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from storm overflows. New duties will also require the government to publish a plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows by September 2022 and report to Parliament on the progress towards implementing the plan.”

Responding to the announcement, incoming CLA president Mark Tufnell said: “After a long-awaited delay, at long last it’s a real boost for the sector to have the legislation in place.

“The new Act sets out a long-term framework with much ambition for new policies such as Biodiversity Net Gain, and tools such as Local Nature Recovery Strategies and Conservation Covenants – all of which will have an impact on how land is managed by farmers and landowners. Now, it’s important more than ever, that these ambitions are translated into meaningful action, and quickly.”

You can share your views with us on the Environment Act, or any other farming issue by emailing us at views@farmersguide.co.uk