A “roadmap to the cliff edge”

Commenting on a Defra press release announcing the government’s new Environmental Improvement Plan, Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s policy director, said:

“If this is a roadmap, it’s a roadmap to the cliff edge. This Conservative government promised the most ambitious environmental plan of any country on earth. Instead, here’s yet more paperwork containing a threadbare patchwork of policies that fail to tackle many of the real threats to our natural world. This won’t do.

“Ministers want to crack down on dual flush toilets while letting water firms pump tonnes of raw sewage into our rivers and seas. Until we see immediate action this Parliament to ban industrial fishing in all our marine protected areas, reduce industrial meat and dairy farming and ramp up protections across a bigger network of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, we’re in real danger of UK nature going into freefall.

“This is a real emergency. Churning out a litany of long-term targets with weak but headline-grabbing policies and hoping the voting public won’t notice the big holes at the centre of the plan just won’t cut it. With these issues at a critical point and so many people worrying about it, the Sunak government have no more time to waste or they’ll feel the result of their failure keenly come the next general election.”