New Government Brings Hope for UK Nature

Thoughts on the implications of the general election results for nature in our country

Hello and welcome to this week's Substack post from Crafty Green Poet.

Yesterday, I was patrolling Edinburgh's Water of Leith, picking litter and recording wildlife as I do most weeks as a volunteer for the Water of Leith Trust. This is something I will no doubt write about in more detail in a future post. For now, I just want to share this photo of a Meadow Cranesbill, which today was looking its beautiful best in one of the wildflower meadows alongside the river.

hile I was photographing the wildflowers, four Jays were flying around in the trees, large colourful members of the crow family, not uncommon birds, but one that I very rarely see. It was a wonderful wildlife moment.

Wildlife in the UK has been under unprecedented pressure over the last few years, particularly because of the Conservative Government's lack of environmental awareness.

Last week's General Election saw a landslide win for the Labour Party, defeating the Conservative Government. The Liberal Democrat Party (generally the most environmentally aware of the major parties) won a significant number of new seats and the Green Party now has four MPs, up from just one in the last Government. This should all be good news for the environment.

Fourteen years of Conservative Government has seriously weakened the Environment Agency, with funding for environmental protection being cut by 80% between 2010 and 2021. Natural England has similarly been underfunded, with serious consequences for the work that can be done to protect England's wildlife.

Ed Milliband, the new secretary for energy security and net zero, said before the election that a new Labour government will take a global lead on climate action. Meanwhile, Steve Reed, the new environment secretary, pledged, two months ago, that a new Labour government would restore Britain's natural landscape and would halt the loss of wildlife in the country.

One of the biggest ecological problems inherited by the new government is the appalling state of our rivers. This has been a vote winner for the Liberal Democrats in some parts of the country.

So, what does the new government need to do? Many conservation organisations have been putting forward their ideas, here are some pointers from the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds).

So we now have hopefully a better future to look forward to for conservation and environmental protection in the UK. However, we must keep up the pressure on the government to do the best they can in these days of biodiversity loss and climate chaos.