Here's a few feral thoughts (and comments and discussion) on this week's developments on the world stage (below in de-ranged facebook posts- click on F symbol to view banter) . What all this means for the global ecological and climate emergency is anyone's guess. So much in flux at the moment in the UK , the new post-Brexit Agriculture and Environment Bills are now taking effect, only time will tell what impact this has on nature conservation but there appears to be a consensus amongst influencers that regulations have been eroded and nature is at greater risk. Whether the project fear predictions of economic and rural collapse ever materialise will soon be seen I guess and whether this results in releasing pressure from the natural system also remains to be seen. We could be entering an era of inadvertent re-wilding created by rural economic collapse?
On the UK front the new changes in the planning system means that democracy is also being eroded with public consultation on specific local planning matters no longer obligatory- presumably making our Hackbridge Neighbourhood Plan and Forum weaker but the Net Biodiversity Gain framework for those developments might strengthen the implementation of some of our ecological objectives in that plan. The new environment regulatory body, the Office of Environment Protection (OEP) will need to be adequately funded and what with Natural England already stripped to the financial bone, the enforcement and effectiveness capabilities of that body remain to reveal themselves. Natural Capital Accounting is developing and provides some hope that eventually these new 'eco-economic' indicators will provide a framework for multi-value indices to add support to GDP indicators in measuring 'growth'.
Globally we are expecting COP26 in 2021 also the 2020 (postponed) UN Biodiversity Conference and will see what this means for the ecological and climate emergency and what an independent UK commit to on that. The UK and the world failed to meet any of the 20 'Aichi' biodiversity targets set a decade ago so what value can any of us put on setting these distant global targets?
So we now enter a completely new post-Brexit playing field, with new opportunities, old opportunities no longer available and it's all been pushed through, mercifully away from the spot light which has been directed on the global pandemic.
What does all this mean for our small organisation, Little Oak Group, is also anyone's guess. What role does small business play in addressing the ecological and climate emergency- I would say that if enough small businesses stepped up to the plate they could certainly achieve a lot more than what NGOs and national or world governments can achieve. 95% of OECD businesses are classified as SME's, they employ 60-70% of the work force. A culture of businesses committed to achieving net biodiversity gain as part of their core business strategy could well be one of the biggest hopes for nature. That's not something that anyone has to wait to get permission for either from law or policy makers- it something that anyone can volunteer to do, anytime, anywhere in any business.
Is this how it will go ?? So trump establishes an insurgency and a campaign of terrorism that is never directly linked...
Posted by Peter Alfrey on Saturday, January 9, 2021
I don't think I've ever posted about Trump. Never had much interest until now, where will he go now? He can't just...
Posted by Peter Alfrey on Thursday, January 7, 2021
What the fuck am I watching !!!
Posted by Peter Alfrey on Wednesday, January 6, 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment