Environment Agency calls for integrated approach
11 June 2007Initiatives established to protect the UK’s natural resources require an integrated approach if they are to adapt and deal with climate change, the Environment Agency has said.
The Woodland Strategy and the Biomass Action Plan were two schemes looked at by the agency and the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) during an investigation into the effect climate change will have on the UK’s natural resource policies and how to make them more efficient.
The results of the study have shown that both the Woodland Strategy and the Biomass Action Plan are dependent on markets and raw material prices, leading the Environment Agency to say that “an integrated land management approach” is the best way forward.
“A UK level revision of common agricultural policy needs to take these different strategies for rural land use and create an integrated land management approach that doesn’t view policies as separate and isolated,” said Dr Clive Walmsley, climate change adviser to CCW.
“For example, biomass production is a positive renewable sorce, but if we look at the strategy from a single focus we won’t see that it could have the wider negative effects on habitat or biodiversity.”
Other schemes investigated as part of the study include the Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Wesl Tir Gofal schemes, Catchment Abstraction Management Strategies and Catchment Flood Management Plans.
