AN IMPORTANT ONE FROM WILD JUSTICE ON SSSI’S AND NATURAL ENGLAND SEEMINGLY LAPSE IN PROTECTION

Good morning, In today’s newsletter we bring you a new report, highlighting Natural England’s failure to protect some of our most important sites for wildlife. Front cover of the Unprotected Nature report, featuring a landscape with a protected area, encroached upon by development. Unprotected Nature report: click the cover above to read it. Unprotected Nature: Natural England failing to designate most important sites for nature. Two years ago we published a report on the state of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in England (click here). It demonstrated how SSSIs were being neglected by Natural England (NE), which was failing to assess site conditions. Two thirds (66%) of these sites hadn’t been assessed for a decade and we wanted to prevent that situation from worsening. Today’s report, featured in the Guardian and authored by researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford, reveals that NE has quietly paused its SSSI designation pipeline – that is to say that parcels of land that are home to valuable wildlife, and are deserving of having protected status, are simply not being protected by the agency with a statutory duty to do so. This failure to designate means that nationally important sites are being lost to development and many more are at risk from inappropriate building projects nearby. Of the 22 sites sitting on Natural England’s waiting list, 14 are at high risk of suffering potential damage. Headline results from the report: One potential SSSI - in Thurrock - has been lost to development while it has been sitting undesignated on the Natural England waiting list. 14 potential SSSIs (63%) in the pipeline are at high risk of suffering damage from inappropriate development within 1 km. Two sites have been sitting in the designation pipeline for more than 10 years. Ten sites have been awaiting designation for more than five years. No new sites can be added to the pipeline while it is paused, meaning that many other potential SSSIs are not even being listed. In the case of the Middlewick Ranges, a site in Essex owned by the Ministry of Defence, that clearly meets the criteria for SSSI designation, this is leading to inappropriate management for nature conservation. Wild Justice is calling for: Natural England to restart the pipeline for designating SSSIs and to add sites to its waiting list that are known to be important for wildlife. The government to provide resourcing to ensure that the work of designation can proceed quickly. The planning decision to allow development on a SSSI in Thurrock to be urgently reviewed. Click here to read the full report and accompanying press release. We’d like to thank Dr Kiera Chapman, Professor Malcolm Tait & Dr Rob Davies for producing this report. Their tenacity and observation has helped shine a spotlight on this failure by NE. We think it’s important that government agencies are held to account when it comes to protecting our wildlife. If you agree and feel able to support us with a donation, however small, you can do so by clicking here. Thank you, Wild Justice (CEO: Bob Elliot. Directors: Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay). This is the 267th Wild Justice newsletter. This email was sent to you because you subscribed to it through the Wild Justice website or through an e-action or a petition where you ticked a box. Thank you. We will only use your personal details to send you the Wild Justice newsletter. We will not give or sell your details to anyone else. You can unsubscribe at any time: there is an unsubscribe button at the foot of this email or you can reply to this email and ask us to remove you from the list (the former will happen immediately, the latter might take a few days). 124, City Road London Greater London EC1V 2NX UNITED KINGDOM Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options