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| Imported agro-chemicals awaiting dispatch at a warehouse on Immingham Dock |
THE RSPB has today fired a warning volley across the bows of the mighty agro-chemicals industry.
It has demanded not just the introduction of reduction targets on the use of pesticides but also the imposition of a tax levy on the manufacturers of such products.
This is in response to the devastating impact agricultural use of chemicals has had on birds and the environment over the past 75 years.
The charity's controversial call is one of many in its hard-hitting Manifesto for Nature which was published this afternoon.
Other demands include:
* Blocking no-deal Brexit "because of the risks it would bring to our environmental standards and their enforcement".
* Implementing secure, robust, independent and transparent governance processes with clear accountability to uphold the law and stand up for our environment.
* Allocating at least £42 billion of public expenditure per year (roughly five per cent of Government spending) to help address the environment and climate emergencies at home and abroad.
* Establishing a new unit in HM Treasury with responsibility to address the environment and climate emergencies, ensuring cross-government coherence on economic policy and public spending with environmental performance as its focus.
* Commissioning an independent review on the sustainability of driven grouse moor management with a view to introducing a licensing system.
* Implementing an immediate ban on burning on upland peatland habitats and end the extraction and use of peat for horticulture.
* Halting the illegal persecution of wildlife by enforcing the law on illegal killing and disturbance.
* Providing a robust and well-resourced planning system with access to expert ecologists and strategic planners, ensuring improved strategic spatial planning for nature.
* Legislating so all new developments delivers a net gain for biodiversity and ensure habitats that are created or enhanced through the new system are secured permanently.
* Placing the provision of public goods at the centre of future land management payments and ensuring payment schemes are designed to deliver protection and recovery for priority habitats and wildlife.
* Creating a major recovery plan for our seas.
* Preparing our coastlines and communities for the impacts of climate change using nature-based solutions such as managed realignment, to restore saltmarshes and mudflats.
* Safeguarding 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030 so they are well managed for nature’s recovery, ensuring that wildlife and habitats within these sites are protected from destructive or extractive activities, including fishing and mining.
* Halting the commercial extraction of forage fish as keystone species, such as sandeels and sprats, to enable the recovery of high-level predators such as seabirds.
* Ensuring strategic spatial planning of offshore wind to avoid deployment in environmentally sensitive places, allowing wind power to drive down emissions in a way which is in harmony with nature.
* Introducing measures to boost the uptake of nature friendly solar and onshore wind, including renewed participation in the Government’s Contracts for Difference auction scheme as recommended by the Committee on Climate Change.
The full document is at:
bit.ly/RSPBManifesto
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