Chris Packham urges mandatory policies for farmers to protect nature

The Government should introduce mandatory policies akin to those enacted during the pandemic for farmers and land managers to compel them to act in a way that protects nature, Chris Packham has said.

Citing one farmer in Hampshire who produces food organically and regeneratively, the naturalist said biodiversity and farming can thrive together, but some farmers are choosing not to change.

He said voluntary schemes require enthusiasm, time and resources from each participant, and if just one of those is lacking then schemes are less likely to be rolled out.

Speaking to MPs on the Insect Decline and Food Security Committee, Packham said: “Maybe some of those things didn’t ought to be voluntary, they ought to be mandatory. And that may well be unpopular, but we are in a crisis.

“We’ve just been through a Covid crisis when mandatory regulation was implicitly important for all of our safety.

“So I would argue, and when it comes to addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, and here we’re talking about insect biodiversity loss, some mandatory policies would probably be really helpful.”

He also said young people, who are more likely to suffer from climate anxiety than older generations, would be more attracted to politicians willing to “taking a more firm standpoint”.

Insect populations in the UK have declined by 60% in the last 20 years, with agriculture thought to be a “major cause” according to the Natural History Museum.

Pesticides and fertilisers actively kill insects while conversion of land destroys their habitat, with climate change and other forms of pollution also being harmful influences.

Mr Packham said it is difficult for conservationists to influence policy makers because the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has greater access to Government and is lobbying to protect vested interests.

He said: “Speaking as a campaigner, at the moment we’re not on an equal playing field.

“The NFU has a lot more access to Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) than the Wildlife Trusts, and therefore driving progressive policy is really difficult to do.

“We don’t have access to those policymakers to tell them frequently enough or forthrightly enough that we’ve got a good idea here.

“And we have to understand that there are significant vested interests within those lobbying groups and the lobbying groups don’t represent all farmers.”

NFU environment forum chair Richard Bramley said: “Farmers understand the importance of protecting insects. They provide a pollination service to UK agriculture that’s worth around £690 million a year.

“With 70% of the UK landscape being farmed, farmers play a vital role in providing more of the food and habitat needed for them to survive and thrive.

“Through voluntary schemes like Championing the Farmed Environment, farmers have created 12,000 football pitches worth of flower habitat containing pollen and nectar mixes.

“A further 19,000 hectares, under agri-environment schemes, have been put aside for the same thing.”

The Springwatch presenter, who first became enamoured with the natural world when he saw a ladybird take flight from his finger as a boy, said protecting nature in the future also requires children to be inspired.

Packham said there could be mandatory policies in schools, depending on circumstances, to take children out of the classroom and into nature, and he bemoaned the use of high-vis jackets for children when they do get out.

As far as I'm aware, no child ever died of newt in the UK. Let's just back off and relax and let them engage with those sorts of things

“I go and I see young people in the natural environment and they’re wearing high-vis jackets. I wear a high-vis jacket if I’m in a dangerous place,” he told MPs.

“What are we saying to those young people if they’re wearing high-vis jackets and every time they touch a newt we squirt them with hand gel?

“As far as I’m aware, no child ever died of newt in the UK. Let’s just back off and relax and let them engage with those sorts of things.”

He continued: “We have to allow those young people to encounter it, it’s got to be on the end of their finger. They’ve got to get slime (sic), stung, bitten and scratched by it to really feel it.

“And so we need to withdraw back from the idea that the natural world is, in some ways, a dark and dangerous place, that it isn’t a place that is filled with wonder.

“I would argue that allowing people too much access to the internet is exposing us to something far more dark and dangerous than the natural world in their gardens.”