climate change

Rewilding 5% of England could create 20,000 rural jobs

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Fascinating article – this piece tells us:

Rewilding 5% of England could create nearly 20,000 jobs in rural communities and increase employment by 50% compared with intensive farming, figures show.

Hybrid roles in animal husbandry and ecology, positions in nature tourism and specialist roles in species reintroductions could be among the new positions, according to analysis from Rewilding Britain, alongside benefits for biodiversity and the climate.

The drive to restore nature on a large scale in the UK’s landscapes has sparked fears of job losses in the agriculture community owing to perceived links to abandoning farmland and halting food production.

But Prof Alastair Driver, the director of Rewilding Britain who put together the figures, said the analysis showed rewilding on marginal land could increase employment without stopping traditional agricultural activities.

“You’re looking at approximately a 50% increase in jobs compared with traditional intensive farming,” Driver said, cautioning that while the figures were positive, there would not be a rewilding industrial revolution.

A park in place of the high street: Could going green revive Britain’s flagging town and city centres?

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I like to keep abreast of new trends in urban settings as sure as eggs is eggs they are likely to be coming to a market town near you in due course. I think it would be really interesting to do an audit of market town public spaces. I know from a recent piece of work in Herefordshire how important they are. This story tells us:

It is a transformation which will make the northeast town of Stockton-on-Tees almost unrecognisable – and which may, advocates say, signal a new future for British towns and cities.

Next year, the sprawling Castlegate shopping centre, which has dominated the high street here for half a century, will be demolished and replaced with a vast public park three times the size of Trafalgar Square.

The mall’s multi-storey car park and dozens of shops, as well as an adjacent hotel, will be bulldozed into history. In their place will come one of the North of England’s biggest urban oases: five acres of grassed lawns, wild habitats, play areas and picnic spots.

If the £37m vision – set to be officially approved next week – is unequivocally bold, it is only the most notable of a whole raft of similar projects currently being green-lit by various local authorities.

Across the UK, such outdoor spaces are being planned on sites previously earmarked for commercial development. In Sheffield, the 1.5-acre Pound Park is to be created where a car park and offices were previously pencilled in. In Leeds, the proposed Aire Park – part of a wider development of apartments and hotels – will become the city’s biggest new green space since the Victorian age. In Manchester, readjusted plans to regenerate the old Mayfield railway depot will now see a 6.5-acre oasis at its heart, albeit one surrounded by high-rise towers.

It all raises an intriguing prospect: after decades when the prevailing trend has been one of loss, could we now be seeing the first signs of a new golden age of park building? And could such facilities be key to transforming the flagging fortunes of our urban centres?

Food strategy for England calls for big cut in meat consumption

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The second of our features on the National Food strategy delves more deeply into the work, with some really interesting statistics which tell us some interesting things about the relationship between land use and calories.

The new food strategy for England, commissioned by the government, lays out in stark detail the damage the current food and farming system wreaks on the environment, as well as our health. It is the biggest destroyer of nature and a major source of climate warming, it says.

The report takes aim at overconsumption of meat. “Our current appetite for meat is unsustainable,” it says. “85% of farmland is used to feed livestock [and] we need some of that land back.”

That 85% of land provides only 32% of the calories we eat, it says: “By contrast, the 15% of farmland that is used to grow plant crops for human consumption provides 68% of our calories.” The report also tackles the myth that grass-fed livestock are greener, saying: “The more intensively you rear some animals, the more carbon-efficient they tend to be.”

UK public should get ‘people’s dividend’ in drive to hit green targets

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In a week of largely un-discussed highly significant reports this major work with implications for the UK countryside tells us:

The British public should be given a “people’s dividend” worth billions of pounds as part of the national drive to hit targets for net zero carbon emissions and the restoration of nature, according to the most detailed blueprint to date for a green transition.

Free public transport, more green spaces and money for improving homes are at the core of a landmark report that proposes one of the greatest advances in the fairness agenda since the creation of the NHS.

The 70,000-word manifesto by the cross-party environmental justice commission says levelling up must be at the heart of efforts to decarbonise the UK economy to ensure policies have broad public support.

The authors – MPs, citizen’s juries, business executives, union leaders and members of the Institute for Public Policy Research – say they have learned from the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protests in France that fuel tax increases will bring a backlash if they are perceived as unfair. Instead, they cite Canada as an example of redistributing carbon tax revenues among citizens. In the UK’s case, they say this should be done in the form of grants and support for better wellbeing.

Caroline Lucas, a Green party MP and one of the co-chairs of the commission, saw parallels with the creation of the NHS in terms of the possible social impact.

After 18 months of deliberation by policymakers and citizens across areas of the UK likely to be most affected by the transition – Tees Valley and County Durham Aberdeenshire, south Wales Valleys and Thurrock in Essex – the final report says the UK is currently failing to ensure that the costs and benefits of the transition to net zero will be fairly shared.

Climate change: Local leaders in England demand more power

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From a local government perspective, one thing the pandemic has revealed is that local action often trumps centralised planning. This story builds on that theme in the context of climate change, with the usual urban sway of many articles, but containing an important grain of rural truth, it tells us:

The UK will struggle to reach its climate change targets unless more power and money is put into local hands, say a group of metro mayors and council leaders. 

The influential figures have written to the PM calling for “further and faster” action to protect the environment. They say the pandemic has shown that local leaders can get things done.

The government said councils and mayors had “a pivotal role” in reducing carbon emissions.

Labour’s Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Steve Rotherham, the Metro Mayor of Liverpool and the Conservative leaders in Hampshire and Leicestershire are among the signatories.

They say without a locally-led approach, the UK will struggle to reach its world-leading climate change targets. 

Ministers have committed to cutting carbon emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels, and to become carbon neutral – or net zero – by 2050. 

That will involve things like switching homes and businesses to sustainable energy sources, more use of public transport, encouraging the use of electric cars and better insulating homes.

Food security: How can UK cities feed themselves?

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Fascinating stuff, I put this alongside the fact that allotments are the most productive means of food production. Its an approach which will become increasingly relevant in our greener inner cities once the trend gets established methinks. This story tells us:

With Covid and Brexit forcing the UK to re-examine its food security, ‘farm cities’ and towns, from Tokyo to Todmorden, could provide a sustainable model for communities to feed themselves

Tokyo is a king of modern-day mega cities. Majestic skyscrapers, a sophisticated transport network, and almost 40 million residents dwell within its urban sprawl. A triumphal metropolis, most certainly. A bucolic paradise… perhaps not.

But look a little closer and a more nuanced picture emerges. Nestled in among the skyscrapers and concrete avenues lies a potential blueprint for a modern form of sustainable agriculture. Unlike many nations that divide themselves between city and country, or urban and rural, Japan mixes the two in a patchwork of organic farms dotted throughout its cities.

These aren’t just home gardens contributing the odd bunch of beans to the dinner table – these are core components of the nation’s food security. A quarter of all Japanese farmers live in cities, producing around one third of the nation’s entire agricultural output. In Tokyo alone, they produce enough vegetables to feed around 700,000 people.

Granted, Japan’s system is far from perfect. The country’s food security is one of the lowest in the developed world and its urban farms are under threat from evolving planning regulations. But as the UK considers its own levels of self-sufficiency and food security in the wake of Brexit and Covid-19, could it learn something from its model of food production?

Green Brexit didn’t happen, says environmental coalition

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Another Brexit disappointment. This story tells us:

The so-called “green Brexit” promised by the government has not been delivered, a coalition of environment groups says.

In 2017, the Environment Secretary Michael Gove promised: “Leaving the EU gives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform agriculture and fisheries.”

That, he said, would allow the UK to reshape the way it cares for its land, its rivers and its seas.

“In short,” Mr Gove pledged, “it means a Green Brexit.”

Over four years and 11 reports, an environmental coalition called Greener UK has tracked policies – and concluded that improvement across the board has not been realised.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said Brexit enabled the UK to create “world-leading legislation, delivering better environmental outcomes in an effective and efficient way”.

Rishi Sunak accused of failing to alleviate the funding gap between towns and cities and rural communities

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Hard hitting stuff from Crispin at the CPRE. This story tells us:

The CPRE charity’s chief executive, Crispin Truman, said reforms were needed and more could have done to help boost funding for market towns and villages in Mr Sunak’s Budget.

He said the Government was employing funding models that “systematically disadvantage” rural communities and worsen the climate emergency.

He added: “By levelling up between urban and rural investment, not just North and South, we could regenerate many rural towns and villages that have been long forgotten.

“It’s just not right that government spending per person on public infrastructure is 44 per cent higher for urban areas than it is for rural areas with no major cities. We risk levelling up Northern cities to the level of London and leaving rural areas stuck in disadvantage and decline.”

Both the CLA lobby group and the NFU welcomed Mr Sunak’s announcement that business rate relief and the reduced VAT rate will both be extended.

The NFU’s president, Minette Batters, urged the Government to invest in farming to bring “huge benefits to sustainable food

Whitehaven coal mine: Planet or jobs debate reignited

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I grew up in a coalfield area. It seems even after all these years strange that all forms of coal extraction might now be loaded with the depth of controversy set out here irrespective of what it might be used for. Not that I am in anyway a climate change denier. I just think it would be useful if we were able to consider the evidence and make a fact based judgement in an unemotive way.

Plans for a coal mine in Cumbria have turned into a global political row. The plan for the first deep mine in the UK for decades in Whitehaven was approved by Cumbria County Council in October 2020.

However, after an outcry from environmental campaigners including Greenpeace and Greta Thunberg, the council suspended its decision.

Now the government, which had previously decided not to intervene in the project has done just that and said a public inquiry must be held.

To complicate matters further, the company behind the mine, West Cumbria Mining (WCM), announced it was taking legal action against the council claiming its U-turn could not be “justified”.

Conservative MP for Workington Mark Jenkinson said he believes a lot of people oppose the idea because they do not understand the mine would produce coal for steel-making, not for power stations.

Level up rural Britain to turbocharge Britain’s green economy

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Lots to read of interest for rural communities in this report. I advise you check it out.

An ambitious and revolutionary approach to levelling up rural Britain can create jobs, boost green economic growth, increase exports and improve the wellbeing of the entire nation, a new report from the NFU highlights.

Launched at the NFU’s annual conference today, the report “Levelling up rural Britain” highlights how British farming and rural Britain can provide the solution to many of the challenges the nation faces by driving sustainable food production and pioneering food policy that produces carbon neutral food.

It also showcases how rural Britain is uniquely placed to help the recovery of the nation from COVID-19; delivering physical and mental health through the farmed landscape, which has been a lifeline for so many during lockdown, and supporting the return to whole-food cooking with nutritious, sustainable and affordable British food.

The report says that no one should be disadvantaged by where they live or where their business is based. It highlights several areas where the rural and urban divide continues to grow including:

Broadband and connectivity – poor access to reliable mobile coverage and adequate broadband continues to put rural areas at a disadvantage1, acting as a constraint to capital investment.

Rural crime – farms and rural communities have increasingly become the target of criminals in recent years, with rural crime costing the UK £54.3 million in 20192. Rural areas continue to receive lower levels of police funding, per head of population, than urban areas3.

Planning – The planning system too often prevents farm modernisation, diversification and home building for farm workers. The government’s planning White Paper offers an opportunity to reform and ensure renewal and growth can be sustained in rural areas.

Investment – UK Government should be encouraging more investment, including British investment, into the success story that is British food.

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