28 January 2010 | Luca Del Buono
Biodiversity, Carbon, Climate Change, Food and agriculture, Water, Europe

 

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Country (RSPB) have a common interest in reforming the EU's CAP program to favour biodiversity.

CAP or the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy aims to ensure EU farmers a decent living, preserve rural land, and ensure consumers quality foods at fair prices.

Mark Avery, the RSPB director of conservation argues, "the current system needs to be overhauled to reward farmers properly for the environmental benefits they provide and which are so vitally important for protecting wildlife on farmland."

Reforms advocated by the RSPB and CLA would provide for reduction of global warming, improved water quality and species conservation.

RSPB/CLA posit an "environmental focus" is essential to in any CAP reform. Farmers would be rewarded not necessarily for the amount of food produced, but for enacting good stewardship on the land they tend; land management has been gradually progressing in this form.

"Skylarks, lapwings and yellowhammers are an intrinsic part of the UK countryside, and we are very pleased to be joining forces with the CLA to help make sure they are still there for many years to come," Avery maintains.

Because CAP takes up a great deal of the EU's budget, reformers believe that if environmental rewards were implemented into CAP policy, the expenses would be justified.

And with biodiversity preservation unrealised from goals set in 2002 and still declining, any land reform aiming to preserve biodiversity would be welcome.

Former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Bob Watson warns we are in danger of approaching "a point of no return."

The National Farmers Union (NFU) opposes RSPB/CLA reforms and believes the CAP must reward high productivity and cite environmental benefits as an "important side effect."

All groups will lobby their causes in Brussels where governments are planning a new long-term budget that will be implemented in 2013.

 

Author: Michael Good | Climate Action

Images Provided by: Smudge 5000 |Flickr; spratmackrel | Flickr; carnagevisors | Flickr; J. M. Garg | Wikipedia
 

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