To our Members of Parliament: The Friends of the South Downs stand behind the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) and share their deep concern about the fate of our National Parks and Protected Landscapes in England. Today we share our concerns with you. It is our hope that we can work together to ensure we retain existing laws and enhance nature protection in our National Parks and make defending our Protected Landscapes a top priority.
Following the UK Government’s lifting of the fracking ban in England, proposals to weaken planning protections, the introduction of Freeports and new investment zones, the UK Government looks set on an unsettling deregulatory agenda, risking the natural assets that provide the basis for our economy.
The Conservative Government was elected in 2019 on a manifesto pledge to deliver the “most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth”. The weakening of vital environmental protections is a 180-degree U-turn on that promise, which the Government has no mandate to do.
Please help us to defend nature by doing all you can to urge the Prime Minister and the Government to put a stop to this attack and instead ramp up action to protect our wildlife, our landscape, our climate and our futures.
We stand behind the CNP and join in their campaign for strengthening the laws and policies that protect what we have and support nature recovery. We only need to look at the ecological disaster unfolding on the North York Moors coast, with growing evidence suggesting this is a direct effect of the Teesside Freeport, to know that unregulated development in these precious landscapes would not end well.
We will work together with CNP and other Societies to get clarity on Freeports and Investment Zones. We need explicit assurances from the Government that proposals will not undermine existing protections for protected areas and protected landscapes. Instead, opportunities for growth must be secured only on the basis of working with nature, harnessing green infrastructure and propelling nature recovery, in line with legal commitments made last year in the Environment Act. Environmental recovery and investment in natural infrastructure should be the focus of any proposed investment zones.
We will work together with the CNP and other Societies to secure improvements to legislation for defending our Protected Landscapes, proposed by the Glover and Marsden reviews and by Defra earlier this year, prioritising nature recovery. Such changes are essential to meeting international and domestic legal commitments on climate and nature. These strengthened laws are essential to securing the economic future of protected landscapes.
Delays or U-turns to long-planned and widely supported rewards for farmers to restore nature would be disastrous for Protected Landscapes. Instead, the UK Government could build opportunities for growing rural economies, learning from its highly popular Farming in Protected Landscapes pilot, which has seen farmers coming together to drive innovation. Farm diversification that includes providing greater access to nature will see billions of pounds of return.
We accept and defend the long-established planning protections that currently apply in Protected Landscapes because they protect the long-term prosperity of rural communities. We hope you share in this view and will work together with us to ensure these protections remain in place.
“Not blind opposition to progress. But opposition to blind progress.” -John Muir
