Archived press release

Voles plea to MPs. Strengthen Countryside Bill: Save rare species

16 May 2000

The Government faces a challenge on Tuesday over the failure of the new Countryside Bill to protect some of England and Wales' most endangered species, including Ratty the water vole, star of Wind in the Willows.

349 MPs supported a Parliamentary motion which included giving legal backing to species rescue plans (known as Biodiversity Action Plans) in the last session. Despite this, the Countryside Bill includes no similar measures which would protect voles, otters and gentians. Now MPs have tabled a critical amendment to the Countryside Bill calling for legal underpinning of Biodiversity Action Planning [1].

The Countryside and Rights of Way Bill is presently in its Commons committee stage. It is expected to start debating Part III of the Bill which covers wildlife protection on 16 or 18 May. Already more than 70 amendments to the wildlife parts of the bill have been tabled by MPs. The BAP clause is a priority issue for conservation organisations.

The plans were introduced by the last Government, but since Labour came to power,support for BAPs from public bodies has dropped. In Wales the Welsh wildlife watchdog,the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) has announced it has dumped more than 120 of the 222 BAPs it is supposed to be working on. It is able to do this because the plans have no backing in law and therefore attract scant public funding.

Chris McCafferty, Labour MP for Calder Valley, has tabled an amendment backed by Labour backbenchers, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru which seeks legal backing for BAPs. There is already a legal duty on the London Mayor to produce a biodiversity action plan, but no equivalent for authorities in the rest of the country.

Commenting, Matt Phillips of Friends of the Earth said:
“Biodiversity plans are essential if we are to save our most endangered species.But without legal backing for the process they will wither on the vine. Public bodies round the country are already dropping plans just three years after they were introduced.
The Countryside Bill is good news for wildlife, but this amendment would give it real strength. Ratty the water vole and his chums need our help. We hope the Government will listen to MPs and put the new clause in the Bill.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] The amendment to be tabled is:

(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State and the National Assembly for Wales, to ensure the preparation, maintenance and revision of lists of species and habitats, for which special measures shall be taken to monitor their population status in view of their vulnerability and/or international importance and to determine which species listed are priority species and require the development of Species Action Plans and which habitats listed require the development of Habitat Action Plans.

(2) It shall be the duty of every Minister, government department, local authority and public body, so far as it is consistent with their primary functions, to further the objectives of Species Action Plans and Habitat Action Plans.

Note that the clause does not seek to enforce or give legal backing to individual plans.Rather it seeks to give backing to the process of establishing plans. This is in order to act as an 'insurance policy' so that changes in national, regional or local governments and in funding arrangements can be protected against. FOE supports the intention of keeping individual plans essentially voluntary. In all there are 391 species and 45 habitat plans.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust