Jeremy's Blog 15th December 2023: 30 by 30 - The Challenge for Land Use

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th December 2023

Forget England’s Agricultural Transition and the coming end of Basic Payment in the other parts of the United Kingdom. While those dominate conversation and thinking, the most striking policy change for much rural land across the UK goes far beyond where the environmental parts of the new policies might seem to go. The international “30by30” commitment means that 30 per cent of land and 30 per cent of a country’s seas are to be managed for nature by 2030 – six years away.

Developed as an idea only in 2019, signed up to by 50 countries by January 2021, including the UK, it is now entrenched as a target in the 2023 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework It has been adopted equally by the devolved governments so that 30 per cent of land in each part of the UK is to be managed for nature by 2030, not 30 per cent overall.

DEFRA’s 2022 Nature Recovery Green Paper made it clear that “managed for nature” means what it says. Just being in the expanding range of National Parks and AONBs (National Scenic Areas in Scotland and now National Landscapes in England) does not do that.

“Areas contributing to 30 by 30 must:

• have a clear purpose of conserving biodiversity (although this may not be their primary purpose)
• have long-term protection and/or management in place that works against adverse pressures on the area’s biodiversity objectives, or actively results in improved outcomes for biodiversity
• deliver the appropriate and necessary biodiversity outcomes. These will be measurable, monitored and can be used to assess the ongoing improvement in these areas.”

England currently has some 8 per cent of land in SSSIs, some geological rather the biodiverse, leaving 22 per cent of England (11,000 square miles) to be found to meet those demanding criteria of purpose, commitment and outcomes. Almost all of that must be out of the 80 per cent that is rural. With the changes those criteria require, this adds scale to the growing competition for rural land use.

NatureScot issued its plan in May, now underlying the Scottish Government’s high level biodiversity consultation ahead of the Natural Environment Bill due next year. DEFRA issued its first direct policy paper on Saturday with a map showing the areas across England, not just upland and coastal, that were more likely to be involved.

Expanding National Nature Reserves and SSSIs are part of the policy, seeing designation without compensation. Natural England invoked “30by30” for the 7,500 acre extension of the West Penwith SSSI. Then, the pressure to improve the condition of SSSIs seems increasingly likely to limit the freedom of land management. Actions notified as potentially affecting an SSSI require consent. The scope for that is illustrated by the power transferred by the need for consent under one such notification:

“Grazing and changes in the grazing regime (including type of stock, intensity or seasonal pattern of grazing and cessation of grazing)”

Here, any grazing, type of grazing and even choosing not to graze could all need consent. While such powers may have had limited use to date, new policy requirements could well drive more intrusive use. The value and business consequences of this have yet to be seen.

While SSSIs were designated as of interest, they might not all have been in good condition in living memory, if ever. The later goal of “favourable condition” brings issues of definition, ambition and assessment, all in a world of climate change and other pressures when 2050 is nearer than the start of SSSIs in 1949.

Such issues have been reviewed by Tuesday’s report of the Independent Review of Protected Site Management on Dartmoor (I was a member of the Panel), pointing towards the new settlement, including finance, that will be needed for public policy to mesh with landowners, farmers and businesses for effective outcomes.

Beyond the SSSIs, voluntary commitments are sought from landowners and farmers at a scale far beyond the stated plans for habitat restoration or creation. Definitions will matter and so will the terms of scheme and private agreements. The possible environmental extension of APR will matter even more to landowners’ decision making.

Fundamentally, we come back to the business and personal choices that owners and farmers will make. How might such land be used to earn a profit and give a living?

In the UK, all such land is the result of thousands of years of management. For many “30by30” areas, farmers and their resources are, if they wish, the best means to deliver the new order. Especially outside those areas, we face the need to produce more from less, sharpening farming’s productivity challenge for the businesses able to answer that.

We need honest discussion about how the “30by30” commitment is to be successful, not a battleground. The Dartmoor report may start to point the way.