Our Natural Heritage: Policies on the Natural Environment

 

Fri, 31 Jul 2009

 
A healthy natural environment is crucial not only to our quality of life but also to the sustainability of life on the planet. Liberal Democrats recognise that the threat to biodiversity and the depletion of our natural resources are as great a threat as climate change.

Our Natural Heritage - Marks a step change in the approach of any major UK political party to the natural environment. The paper again places the Liberal Democrats at the forefront of proposals to both improve the quality of life of people today, especially those living in deprived areas, and safeguard the natural environment for future generations.
In particular, the proposals include measures to:

Cut the net consumption of natural resources, including passing an Anti-Waste & Resource Efficiency Act to establish an independent Resource Efficiency Committee tasked with identifying the key resources being used unsustainably and with a duty to recommend binding targets for reducing their net consumption, on the lines of the Climate Change Act;

Supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services, in particular by moving to the use of environmental capacity as the key guidance for identifying sites for development; giving local authorities a duty to protect local biodiversity and set local targets for wildlife; encouraging provision of wildlife-friendly features in new developments; and better protecting natural habitats that cannot be replaced;

Giving people access to their local environment by insisting on Natural England's Natural Green Space standards and increasing rights of access to the countryside, as successfully introduced by the Liberal Democrats in Scotland;
Improving water management by introducing universal smart water metering in water stressed areas by 2020; providing grants and preferential rates for water saving products; and providing stronger planning guidance in favour of compulsory rainwater harvesting;

Giving people control over their local environment by introducing landscape-scale planning and reversing Labour's Planning Act; giving local authorities the power to protect green spaces;
Acting to cut noise and light pollution with stricter regulation and better enforcement, including treating external lighting as a potential pollutant requiring control and taking measures to cut traffic and aircraft noise and provide better noise insulation for homes;

Providing proper environmental enforcement by making the Environment Agency the 'buck-stops-here' body with responsibility for co-ordinating the enforcement of environmental protection regulations; and ensuring that environmental crimes are properly prosecuted and the penalties truly reflect the damage done;

Acting internationally to protect the natural environment.

The policies within the paper will be the subject of a major debate at the Party's Bournemouth conference in September.
You can access a PDF of the policy paper here