Chief Executive Sarah Jane Chimbwandira has joined senior figures from the RSPB, National Trust and Wildlife Trusts across the UK to warn that abandoning key regulations that protect nature, while creating low-regulation ‘investment zones’ with few planning restrictions could decimate wildlife whilst putting precious habitats under threat from bulldozers and concrete.
Under the government’s new Retained EU Law Bill ministers also propose to abolish all EU-derived rules as quickly as possible, including the Habitat Directives which have kept places that are rich in threatened plants and animals free from commercial development and pollution.
Surrey Wildlife Trust has also condemned plans to remove the present moratorium on fracking, putting sites in Surrey at risk of air, water and sound pollution, and to drop proposals to help farmers to look after nature and farm more sustainably. The government wants to return instead to a failed agricultural subsidy system where farmers are paid with taxpayers' money based on purely on how much land they own.
Surrey Wildlife Trust Chief Executive Jane Chimbwandira said:
“If we want our economy to grow and prosper over the long term, we must start working with, not against nature – so tearing up the laws that protect our wild places is not the way to improve people’s lives. In Surrey, our precious rivers, meadows, woodlands and heathlands provide clean air, water and food as well as an enormous boost to quality of life for people of all backgrounds and incomes. It is heartbreaking that the government proposes a free-for-all for frackers, polluters and developers, while abandoning plans to reward farmers for protecting and promoting nature.”
Wildlife Trusts across Britain are reminding MPs and Ministers that the Conservative government was elected in 2019 on a manifesto pledge to deliver the “most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth” and that the weakening of vital environmental protections is a complete abandonment of that promise.
The Trust are asking members and supporters to write to their MPs asking that they work together to put a stop to Liz Truss’s proposals and instead ramp up action to protect our wildlife, our climate, and our futures.
