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The Wildlife Trusts

The Wildlife Trusts
@WildlifeTrusts

Sep 22, 2022
12 tweets
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We face an urgent nature and climate crisis. But instead of a plan for nature's recovery on land and at sea, the UK Government is pursuing a dangerous agenda of deregulation that puts the very laws protecting wildlife at risk. But what does this mean exactly? (1/12)

Deregulation means removing rules and protections, often characterised as “cutting red tape”. In reality, it means polluters can get away with poisoning our rivers and countryside. (2/12)
It also means ripping up the rules that protect our most important wildlife sites from damage and removing funding that supports farmers to restore wildlife across our landscapes. (3/12)
The Retained EU Law Bill – introduced into the House of Commons by Business Secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, today – will reform and revoke hundreds of laws that have their origins in policies from the European Union. (4/12)
Whatever our views on Brexit, many of these laws provide vital environmental protections for our air, rivers, wildlife and food standards. (5/12)
Rather than pursuing its deregulation agenda, we need the UK Government to... 1⃣ Strengthen the rules that protect our most important wildlife and habitats – don’t just remove them. (6/12)
The removal of the Habitats Regulations is a particular concern. They defend 18.8 million hectares of our most precious wildlife across the UK from inappropriate and damaging development – from the New Forest and Norfolk Broads, to hazel dormice and harbour porpoises. (7/12)
2⃣ Increase support for nature friendly farming to secure a sustainable future for British farming & nature. The estimated cost to UK farmers of soil degradation alone is £1.2 billion/year. To secure a sustainable future for British food & farming, we need more nature. (8/12)
Delays to schemes to reward farmers to restore nature would be bad value for money, providing billions of taxpayer funding to the wealthiest farms in England, hold back the recovery of nature, and hinder the UK’s progress to Net Zero. (9/12)
3⃣ Set a legally binding target to ensure nature is in a better state by 2042. The UK Government’s current nature target would mean there is less nature in England in 20 years' time. (10/12)
We cannot let the UK Government pretend that it can have it both ways – that it can gut environmental laws whilst also positioning itself as a climate and nature leader on the world stage. (11/12)
When the UK attends COP15 in December to negotiate global action on biodiversity loss, its push for “high ambition” outcomes will be undermined by its decisions to deprioritise nature at home. Read more 👇 (12/12) wildlifetrusts.org/blog/joan-edwa…
The Wildlife Trusts

The Wildlife Trusts

@WildlifeTrusts
Sharing nature stuff, stories & news from The Wildlife Trusts - our goal is nature's recovery on land and at sea. Tweets by The Wildlife Trusts comms team.
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