Experts will tell Trust’s annual conference that governments must recognise nature’s real value, says Matt Jackson of BBOWT

Nature matters and it only takes a moment’s thought to come up with a list of reasons why. From the food that we eat to the air we breathe, nature underpins the very essentials of our lives.

But when it comes to recognising the true value of nature, we are very slow to take account of the environmental consequences of important decisions about jobs, health, education, housing, transport and, of course, where our food comes from.

There are lots of reasons for that. Nature can be very resilient, and every day we see it adapt to changes.

Impacts on the natural environment tend to be incremental. It’s often not a single action that dramatically changes our natural environment, but slow, almost invisible, changes that build up over time.

We fail to take proper account of our actions on wildlife because it’s very complicated. Take the loss of pollinator insects such as bees, wasps, butterflies and moths. Something fundamental to our wellbeing has declined steadily over the last 50 years, almost imperceptibly until people started to complain about not seeing these friendly insects that are essential for food production.

Usually resilient to most changes, bee and other insect populations have faced the onslaught of chemicals used as fungicides, pesticides and herbicides in our gardens as well as on farms over the last 50 years.

Then they’ve been challenged by the loss of natural food sources. Wild flowers have disappeared from field margins and roadside verges, hedgerows and orchards been grubbed up, and meadows and grasslands gone under the plough.

It’s only now that this combination of threats has reached a critical point, and we’ve realised how close we’re coming to the complete collapse of a system that is crucial to our own way of life. So how can we make sure that environmental consequences are built-in to decision making, both locally and nationally?

That’s the topic of the BBOWT annual conference to be held this Saturday in Oxford. Three experts will give their views on how to ensure that the real value of nature is recognised by governments and people making decisions about how the nation will develop. Peter Young, a member of the government’s Green Economy Council, will suggest how we should account for our natural capital, the wealth of our wildlife in monetary terms, and how we can work with businesses to balance economic growth with the management of the environment.

West Oxfordshire dairy farmer Poul Christensen, recently chairman of Natural England the Government’s environmental advisors, will explain how to meet the challenges of feeding a growing population while achieving a real sustainable balance in our countryside.

The final speaker is Steve Trotter, director for the English Wildlife Trusts, who will address how we can all help to change the ways in which people think about the natural environment so that the real value of nature for everyone is recognised in future.

One of the biggest challenges in getting nature truly valued comes from the ways in which the country is managed. We elect politicians on a five-year cycle, expecting them to make decisions about our long-term future in ways that threaten their short-term employment prospects.

Of course we can change that, but only if we want to. It’s only when politicians know that taking the natural environment seriously will actually make them more electable, that they will commit to making changes to the way nature is accounted for.

BBOWT is asking all the political parties to Act for Nature and commit to a Nature and Wellbeing Act in the next parliamentary cycle.

The Wildlife Trusts and RSPB are asking everyone to contact their MPs and political candidates to tell them how important the natural environment is to us all.

I’d like to think that everyone reading this article knows that. We have to take nature seriously, and show our politicians both locally and nationally they have to do the same.

FIND OUT MORE

Act for Nature www.bbowt.org.uk/actfornature
BBOWT conference www.bbowt.org.uk/conference
Come Dine with Bee, campaign for more plants for pollinators. Urban Pollinators www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/research/ecological/community/pollinators