'A sliding doors moment for nature' - Launch of the Nature 2030 report

Speech for the launch of Wildlife and Countryside Link 's #Nature2030 report, 18/07/23 in Parliament: https://www.wcl.org.uk/nature2030.asp

I’m delighted to be here as Director-General of the National Trust and a proud Link member endorsing this excellent report.

I’ve been thinking a lot recent about both why it’s so important for us to act – and who we are acting for.

The truth is of course it’s not just about us – it’s got to be about future generations.

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You may not have seen it yet, but as part of today’s launch, a few of us were asked to film a video responding to children’s questions about nature. Why is it in trouble and what politicians could do about it.

Forget Paxman – if you want to get to the heart of the issue, ask a 7-year-old.

And it makes sense - because they are of course the generation that’s going to inherit what we create.

One of the questions, from Zeb, was what superpower would I choose to have to help nature?

I bet you’re all thinking about what superpower you’d want to have now yourselves…

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After a bit of thought, I ended up choosing time travel.

In the first instance, I’d want to be able to travel back in time, to see some of the wildlife and nature that we’ve already lost.

I’m being realistic – I’m not planning to go back to seeing the dinosaurs. But I do want to go back to a time when nature was thriving.

When our hedgerows were thicker and wilder, when the air was louder with sound of birdsong and crickets, and you could feel safe to swim in our cool natural rivers.

But I also want to go forward. I want to see what version of the future we end up creating.

The truth is that we are at a sliding doors moment for nature. We have the power and the responsibility to choose the future we want to see.

The decisions that are made in the next Parliament, on whether we meet those 2030 targets or not, will determine what happens to our Wild Isles.

And that in turn will affect the future that Zeb and all the children in the video will inherit.

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There are two paths that we can follow.

Path one, we can recognise the scale and urgency of the challenge we are facing. Work hard to put in place the solutions to help nature thrive once more. And nail delivery across the country. The 2030 targets are challenging, but within our reach with collective willpower.

In doing so we’d also create a better society to live in, with so many knock-on benefits for people and nature and place.

Thriving nature would boost our economy, support our wellbeing, help us tackle climate harm and bring beauty back into all of our lives.

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Or we can choose the second option. ?Fail to match the magnitude of the crisis, and end up complicit in nature’s decline.

It’s not just bleak for wildlife, it’s dire for us all. It would undermine the systems that we all rely on. There’s no food security without a healthy environment, no stability when you’ve removed all the natural processes and buffers that help protect us.

We’re already seeing what some of this alternative future might look like in the crisis in our rivers and beaches.

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I know what option I’m choosing – even if it does mean hard work and graft.

I want my children and my grandchildren – I want Zeb and all of his friends and schoolmates – to grow up enjoying the benefits of nature. ?

And it’s not enough to pass them on what we’ve got right now. We all want a better future for our kids, and we know that nature’s been in decline for decades.

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If we are to be those good ancestors, then we have to get this right and act now.

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And that is of course where this plan comes in.

The good news is that none of it is new or untested. It doesn’t need a superpower – it just needs leadership and ambition to ramp up the scale nationwide.

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Take priority 1 - investing in nature-friendly farming.

The Trust works with many brilliant tenant farmers. People like Holly Purdey, from Horner Farm in the Porlock Vale in Devon.

She has, worked hard to transform the landscape she cares for so that it’s more financially sustainable and good for nature. It’s run as a low input and low output system, with space created for wildlife and the creation of new wood pasture.

All of this work requires resilience and investment.

To replicate this across the country, we need to increase investment in sustainable farming and land management, turbocharging ELMs and giving farmers the confidence to invest.

Focusing on investment to support rapid, widespread change in farming and woodland management can deliver the single biggest contribution to meeting the Government’s target to halt nature’s decline by 2030 – and it’s good for carbon too.

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The reason I single this example out is because it shows that change is possible. It’s not some far-off utopia. We’ve already seen a shift – but to match the scale of the nature crisis we need to increase scale, support and ambition – across the picture.

I want to finish by returning to Zeb. We’re all going to have to make plenty of decisions and choices over the next few months as the next election draws close. But when we make these we should remember that we are shaping the future – his future – and for all those who come after him.

We know the scale of the challenge. We also know how to address it. We’ve even got a plan summarising the top actions. Let’s not squander this opportunity.

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