The Biodiversity Action Plan

The 1992 Rio Earth Summit saw the first such gathering of world leaders with a common concern about the state of our world’s environment.

A programme of action to promote Sustainable Development was prepared from this Summit called Agenda 21. Over 170 countries signed the agreement, including the UK. One of the elements was to develop the Biodiversity Action Plan.

The UK Government “Biodiversity: The UK Action Plan” was published in 1994 and a Biodiversity Steering Group was established in order to implement the work programme contained within the plan.

The UK Biodiversity Steering Group set aims and targets including the development of costed plans for most habitats and species in decline or under threat; and the promotion of Local Biodiversity Action Plans (LBAPs). These local plans are crucial to making conservation happen at the local level.

A Local Biodiversity Plan has a shared agenda for conserving and enhancing biodiversity and should evolve by building consensus. While one organisation may take the lead, everyone concerned with the local environment should own it. Establishing partnerships is therefore one of the most important elements of the LBAP process.

Local biodiversity action needs to include farmers, landowners, foresters, game managers, fishery managers, managers or graziers of common land, environmentalists, government departments, conservation charities, industrial/ commercial enterprises, and local authorities. It involves working together with local community groups, schools, colleges, and people of all ages.

At a Wales level the Wales Biodiversity Partnership provides guidance and support in preparing Local Biodiversity Action Plans.

The World

In 1992, the leaders of the world's nations met to set out an ambitious agenda to address the environmental, economic, and social challenges facing the international community. This 1992 meeting, the largest-ever meeting of world leaders, took place at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

An historic set of agreements was signed at the Earth Summit, including two binding agreements, the Convention on Climate Change, which targets industrial and other emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and the Convention on Biological Diversity - http://www.biodiv.org/doc/publications/guide.asp, the first global agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

The biodiversity treaty gained rapid and widespread acceptance. Over 150 governments signed the document at the Rio conference, and since then more than 175 countries have ratified the agreement.

The Convention has three main goals:

• The conservation of biodiversity
• Sustainable use of the components of biodiversity, and
• Sharing the benefits arising from the commercial and other utilization of genetic resources in a fair and equitable way

The Convention on Biological Diversity, as an international treaty, identifies a common problem, sets overall goals and policies and general obligations, and organises technical and financial cooperation. However, the responsibility for achieving its goals rests largely with the countries themselves.

Europe

The European Community is a signatory to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. It has a Biodiversity Strategy and produces regular reports to the Convention of the Parties.

The Strategy, published in 1999, states: ‘Biodiversity is essential to maintain life on Earth and has important social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic values’. It goes on to talk about the value of biodiversity for the future development of many industrial processes, the production of new medicines and the viability of agriculture and fisheries for food.

The purpose of the Strategy is to anticipate, prevent and attack the causes of biodiversity loss at source, to reverse present trends in biodiversity reduction or losses and to bring species and ecosystems, including agro-ecosystems, to a satisfactory conservation status, both within and beyond the territory of the European Union (EU).

The Strategy is support ed by thematic action plans – for natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, economic development and cooperation; these plans are led by the relevant sectors.

The Strategy and Action Plans complement the work of Member States on their own national biodiversity strategies and provide a framework for action across the EU.

In 1998, the European Council met in Cardiff and started a process ( known as the Cardiff process) of integrating environmental considerations, including biodiversity, into key sectoral roles.The European Commission’s communication ‘A Sustainable Europe for a Better World’ (2001) sets a target to halt biodiversity loss in the EU by 2010.

UK

In 1993, the UK government consulted with over three hundred organisations throughout the UK and held a two-day seminar to debate the key issues raised at the Biodiversity Convention in Rio . The product of this was the launch of Biodiversity: the UK Action Plan in 1994.

The report identified 59 broad activities for conservation work over the next 20 years (the ‘59 steps’) and recommended that a steering group be created in order to take the work forward. It also established fundamental principles for future biodiversity conservation in the UK . These were:

• Partnership - action involving the mutual co-operation of statutory, voluntary, academic and business sectors at both national and local levels.
• Targets - measurable outcomes need to be established that address the needs of species and habitat types of most concern to biodiversity conservation.
• Policy Integration - recognise that shifts in policy are needed to reverse the decline in the UK biodiversity resource and to support sustainable development in all sectors of society.
• Information - while sound science and knowledge should underpin decisions, recognise that new approaches are required to fill information gaps and understanding and to manage the information already available more efficiently.
• Public Awareness - public understanding and action is needed to support the changes needed to maintain biodiversity.

UK Biodiversity Steering Group

The UK Biodiversity Steering Group was created and in 1995 published Biodiversity: The UK Steering Group Report Meeting the Rio Challenge contained costed action plans to conserve 116 species and 14 habitats together with recommendations for future biodiversity action plans (Tranche 1). Since then, a further 6 volumes of species and habitat action plans have been published (Tranche 2).

The Government Response to the Steering Group Report

The Government's response to the UK Steering Group was published in May 1996 (CM 3260). It endorsed the report and its main recommendations. The UK Biodiversity Group was established with membership from the existing range of partners in the biodiversity process. A number of thematic and country biodiversity groups have since joined to assist implementation of the UK BAP.

Why not look at the UK Biodiversity website?

http://www.ukbap.org.uk/

From here you can:

• Find out about UK biodiversity by accessing the local, species and habitat action plan summaries;
• Look at the contacts page to read about biodiversity groups and search for organisations;
• Download reports, guidance notes, news and documents from the library;
• Explore the factors (keywords) affecting the decline of species or habitats.
• Keep up to date with the UK Standing Committee meetings and actions

Devolution

The Scotland Act (1998), the Government of Wales Act (1998) and the Northern Ireland Act (1998) introduced schemes of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Under these changes, relations with the European Union and obligations arising out of Treaties and Conventions remain the responsibility of the UK government but the devolved administrations are responsible for implementing obligations that concern devolved matters. Powers on environmental regulation are among the policy areas devolved. As a result of this, responsibility for implementing conservation of these priorities was devolved to a country level and the four countries have published country strategies to help guide the implementation of biodiversity conservation, sustainable development and environmental concerns. These are considered in more detail on the Country Groups page.

Current UK BAP structure

A revised UK BAP structure was implemented in late 2002, following government acceptance of the recommendations from the Millennium Biodiversity Report. The UK Biodiversity Partnership, comprising all those involved in the UK BAP, replaced the UK Biodiversity Steering Group. A UK Biodiversity Partnership Standing Committee was established to manage the business of the UK Biodiversity Partnership. It is assisted in this role by two advisory groups - the Biodiversity Reporting and Information Group (BRIG) and the Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (BRAG).

Soon after its formation, BRIG set up four groups to deal with immediate work. In 2006 the Targets Group published revised targets for the old list of species and habitats and a complete review of the UK BAP species and habitats was published in August 2007.  This brought the number of priority species up to 1150, and priority habitats to 65. In early 2008, a list of the priority conservation actions (signposting) was published.

In addition, and partly in response to the publication of the country strategies and overall progress, a refreshing of the UK BAP and of ways of delivering conservation was initiated.  The conclusion of this work, "Conserving Biodiversity - the UK Approach", was published.  

Wales

Within Wales responsibility for implementation of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan rests with many different players, with the overall steer and coordination provided by the Wales Biodiversity Partnership (WBP). This group brings together all sectors in a partnership supported by the work of people, groups and organisations locally and nationally.

The Wales Biodiversity Framework sets out the roles and remits of organisations and individuals involved in biodiversity action in Wales

The Partnership meets three times a year. These meetings often include a morning of seminars and discussions on relevant topics, such as ‘engaging business’ and ‘large-scale habitat restoration’.

The Partnership is chaired by Diana Reynolds, of the Welsh Assembly Government's Department for Environment, Planning and the Countryside, and is supported by a Secretariat based in various locations throughout Wales.