BNG Comes into Effect
It was a pleasure to be interviewed by Jason Reeves of Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) about the implementation of BNG.
Mandatory from today, this policy will transform understanding and action on BNG, contributing to nationwide nature recovery ambitions, and ensuring we restore biodiversity at scale.
Thank you to Jason for the opportunity to speak at length on the issue, it's a huge source of personal pride to see something I've campaigned for since 2004 come to fruition.
Here’s the thoughts I shared with CIEEM on today’s implementation:
“It was back in 2004, addressing what was then still an IEEM conference, where I raised the idea that development should actually deliver gains for nature rather than the system as it was then that did not account for biodiversity appropriately. Having done that I set up the Environment Bank in 2006 and spent most of my time lobbying Government to get a new approach into a regulatory framework.
I must congratulate Defra and Natural England for persisting with the whole scheme, such that we’ve got a policy now in law which I think is one of the most significant since the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981.
I think this is one of the most exciting times for biodiversity because, if you look globally, there are almost no similar compliance markets that will operate in the same way as BNG looks set to operate. And whilst there are still some teething problems around the balance between on-site and off-site delivery – and I really believe off-site is going to be much more beneficial for biodiversity than on-site – I think BNG is actually going to set the scene for an international take-off of something similar and we’ve seen that with people in the USA congratulating us in England for bringing into policy a compliant market for biodiversity and nature recovery.
Another positive is that although the demand for land is not going to be massive it will start to make a contribution to the 500,000 hectare nature recovery ambitions that the Government wants to see, and I think it is also the first time that we’ve seen biodiversity or nature made economically visible. We can’t just brush it all under the carpet now we know that it has a cost to us – and if it has a cost, it has a price, and if it has a price then it has a value. So for the first time perhaps, biodiversity is valued within the development sector because of the importance that’s placed on ensuring that we recover nature at scale, which we’ve got to do in view of the biodiversity crisis which is an existential threat to us all.”
Read the article in full here: https://cieem.net/bng-is-finally-here/