My Lords, I rise—metaphorically—to support Amendment 25. My support of this amendment is similar to my support of the target for the PM2.5 particulates in the last grouping. In essence, I believe that we have to be ambitious, so I also support Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. But, first, I thank the Minister —he seems to be getting a slightly hard time tonight—for coming up with his Amendment 22 in the first place. However, as others have said, I realise that there are no serious commitments within it as yet—but it is a start and we all hope that we can draw out some firmer detail as a result of this debate.
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Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I believe that just halting the decline of species—that is, a net zero loss of species—is not ambitious enough. We have lost too much of our biodiversity over recent decades. Our generation of land managers, including myself, has been caught napping on our watch. So I think we should be ambitious to positively put right our mistakes, particularly as many of the species which have declined have begun in recent years to level out. I think we should be encouraged by that fact to go for a truly positive turnaround.
Perhaps I can give a small snapshot of this issue—and I have to stress that it is only a small snapshot from a non-scientist. First, there is abundance change and distribution change, and the two results are not currently merged, which strikes me, as a complete amateur, as slightly strange. If a species in question is slightly declining in abundance where it has previously been measured in, say, Dorset, but is now really thriving and growing in Yorkshire, perhaps due to climate change, we ought to count that as a success and feed it into the statistics. But, as I say, I am not a scientist.
In terms of abundance change, in all four nations of the UK there are 2,890 priority species, which have seen a decline of 36% since 1970—that is big. But,
sadly, the 670 species on the English list have gone down by approximately 50%, which is obviously worse. Of course, the results are variable: over this long-term period, 21% of species increased, but 63% showed a decline. The worst decline was among the moths, which make up 431 of the 670 species. That in itself is an issue: do we have the weighting of different species right? Should moths represent 64% of the species being measured? This is obviously a complicated matter, on which I am definitely not qualified to comment.
Some species—for example, bryophytes, lichens, pollinating insects and others—are now beginning to level off and indeed rise, possibly because of the warmer climate enabling species to expand their range, but most are still well below their 1970 stats. Birdlife is also beginning to level out. I notice that they seem to be flourishing around the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and her place, if the birdsong accompanying her speech is anything to go by.
Farmland, woodland and wetland birds are still slightly declining, but seabirds and wintering waterbirds are showing early signs of recovery. The bat index of 10 species is also now very much on the way up. Butterflies have certainly recovered well in recent years but, as we know, their numbers fluctuate dramatically according to spring and summer temperatures. The latest figures we have on butterflies are for 2019, but I imagine that they boomed last year as well. In terms of plants, the declines in bog, wet heath, broadleaf woodland, hedges and lowland grassland are all now showing signs of levelling off.
So, as your Lordships can see, I would not go so far as to say that a turnaround has already started, but many of the species have long since reached their nadir. Therefore, a net growth in species abundance is not such an impossible dream for the Government to aim at if they focus hard on habitat restoration and good environmental management. Mind you, it all depends on where you set your baseline for recovery—that is, from when.
Of course, it is hard to forecast what will make a whole raft of species recover. We already have some clear success stories in individual species: the cirl bunting, which was just mentioned, bitterns, ladybird spiders, chalk-hill blues, greater horseshoe bats, et cetera. These are mostly habitat specialists and it is possible to predict what will happen if you restore their habitats, but it is harder to predict what will happen to the wider generality of species. However, it is my belief that we can make a difference if we work hard to create more local habitats both through ELMS and, in particular, through local nature recovery networks.
We can make this work only if every county and every special landscape—national parks and AONBs—really focus on what their local environment can do for this agenda. I support other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Devon, in saying that it is really all about local input into this agenda, and we must focus on that. As I say, if we work hard at this and, in particular, use our field margins to soften the agricultural desert, we can make a big difference. If, for instance, in an area you could get 50% of farms to put 10% of their land into HLS schemes or the ELMS equivalent, I believe that you would see a massive and measurable turnaround.
Talking of measuring, I say that nowadays the monitoring of species abundance is becoming much more accurate. For instance, if you want to analyse the life in any watercourse—river, lake or pond—you no longer have to trap or catch that life; you just take samples of the water and analyse all the various DNA you find in it. It has proven to be very accurate and, I am sure, could certainly help the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, to measure life in the Itchen. Coming from Inverness, I have jokingly suggested that if only we had the DNA of the Loch Ness monster, in spite of Loch Ness being the largest quantity of freshwater in the UK, we could now definitively tell whether he—or maybe she—is there or not.
There is also now an E-Surveyor tool, which is an app that uses computer vision to classify plant species and report on the condition of habitats for pollinators. Farmer-led moth traps also allow the farmer to photograph what is there each morning, and artificial intelligence provides the identification results along with the condition of the farmland habitats. Citizen science has advanced a long way, with data capture tools for butterflies, birds and pollinators. It is my belief that, if we use all these tools at our disposal to give us instant feedback on what works or does not work, we can very soon calculate the best way to restore the right habitats in the right places for our biodiversity to flourish.
I repeat: let us be ambitious about our target-setting. Most species are already beginning to level out and, bearing in mind that we are entering a whole new agricultural world, and that the Bill introduces a whole new raft of boosts for nature—biodiversity gain, conservation covenants, local nature recovery strategies, et cetera—I firmly believe that we can turn this around sooner rather than later. I know that ELMS are still a few years away, and I realise that species abundance reporting is always two years behind the curve but, being an optimist, I would like to hope that we can achieve an overall positive turnaround by 2032. I am sure the Minister will be able to persuade his officials that, given the right focus, both across the nation and on a localised basis, this is definitely doable.