Transcript Landscape Protection - UK Environmental Law Association

The unavoidable policy- how to
enhance wilderness protection
in Europe
Simon Boyle, Solicitor
Coordinator UKELA Wild Law Group
Legal Director Argyll Environmental
What is UKELA?
• UKELA= United Kingdom Environmental Law
Association
• A charity with the aim ‘To make the law work for
a better environment’
• Members mainly solicitors, barristers,
environmental consultants, academics, students
• www.ukela.org
What is UKELA?
• Comprises of a governing body, Council
• Working party groups , e.g. Nature Conservation
Working Party, Climate Change and Energy
Working Party
• Special Interest Groups, Young UKELA Special
Interest Group and Wild Law Special Interest
Group
What is Wild Law?
•
•
•
•
•
Wild Law Group started 2005
Principles based largely on work of :
Christopher Stone, Should Trees have Standing
Thomas Berry, The Great Work
Cormac Cullinan, Wild Law
What is Wild Law?
• Currently, legal systems adopt a human-centred
view of the world
• Wild law opposes this dominant view- advocate
laws which reflect a balanced system of law and
governance for the whole Earth community
• Earth community should have legal status and
rights
Wild law in action
• US Supreme Court case Sierra Club v Morton
• Dissenting judgement by Justice Douglas
• ‘The problem is to make certain that the
inanimate objects, which are the very core of
America's beauty, have spokesmen before they
are destroyed.’
Wild Law in UKELA
• Wild Law Group has held annual weekends in
England 2005-2011 with papers published in
journal Environmental Law & Management
• Since 2010 have held weekends in Scotland
• Loch Ossian (near Ben Nevis) , Broadmeadows
(Scottish borders) , Aviemore (Cairngorms)
Wild Law in UKELA
• November 2005 first
UKELA Wild Law
conference –
University of
Brighton
UKELA Wild Law Group
• Those who attended first Scottish weekend at
Loch Ossian decided to form a group that would
look at how law could be improved to provide
greater protection to wilderness areas
• Landscape or Wilderness Directive
• Wish to work with other organisations with
similar objectives
• Expect to work closely with the John Muir Trust,
possibly Scottish Mountaineering Council
Wild Land in the
United Kingdom
• John Muir Trust Mapmapping relative
‘wildness’
• Best 10% in blue –
nearly all in Scotland
• <33% of best areas in
Scotland have
statutory landscape
protection – majority
at risk
Wild Land in Scotland
• John Muir Trust Map- mapping wild land
• These wild land areas are now under threat from
human development- primarily from onshore
windfarms
• 2002, 41 per cent of Scotland was unaffected by
visual impact from built development
• 2009, that figure dropped to 28 per cent
Wild Land in the UK
• Progress in the UK on mapping of wild land –
expressed as ‘relative wildness’
• Planning policies in place from 2 National Parks
in Scotland to try and protect wildest areas
• Small area in Wales is unprotected – small area
in Northern England protected by National Park
status
• National policy and planning guidance is weak –
requires robust policy linked to new maps
Wilderness in Europe
• In Europe less than 1% of European landmass
can be categorised as wilderness
• Predominantly in Finland, Sweden, Norway,
Ukraine and Western Russia
• Europe’s last remaining primeval forest,
Bialowieza in Poland (was Royal hunting
reserve)
European Protection
•
•
•
•
•
Habitats Directive
Birds Directive
Natura 2000 Designated Sites
Water Framework Directive
These are all critical but no Directive on
Wilderness for its own right
The urgent need for wilderness
protection
• The remaining 1% of Europe’s remaining
wilderness is under many threats of economic
development including windfarms, hydroelectric
dams and tourism
• Wilderness is vital for biodiversity and for man
both for recreation and for solitude
Balancing energy needs and
wilderness
• The UKELA Wild Law Group understands the
vital need to transition from fossil fuels to
renewable energy
• However this does not mean that renewable
energy must be produced at any cost and
without recourse to wider environmental
concerns
• There should be more focus on reducing energy
dependency through efficiency and saving
The urgent need for wilderness
protection
• Over the centuries many of our greatest writers,
poets and scientists have recognised the vital
importance of wilderness:
• Wordsworth- ‘A wilderness is rich with liberty’
• Thoreau- ‘In wilderness is the preservation of
the world’
• Aldo Leopold – ‘Wilderness is a resource which
can shrink but not grow... the creation of new
wilderness in the full sense of the word is
impossible’
The urgent need for wilderness
protection
• President Theodore Roosevelt- ‘Short-sighted
men who in their greed and selfishness will, if
permitted, rob our country of half its charm by
their reckless extermination of all useful and
beautiful wild things...’
The urgent need for wilderness
protection
• The UKELA Wild Law Group therefore fully
supports the European Parliament’s Resolution
on Wilderness on Europe (OJC67E/1)
Changing attitude to wilderness
• Wilderness – means undisturbed habitat which
is essential if we are to halt the current mass
extinction of the natural world
• Up to 27,000 species a year may be lost (75 a
day)- mainly through loss of habitat
Wilderness protection in USA
• United States Wilderness Act 1964
• ‘A wilderness, in contrast with those areas
where man and his own works dominate the
landscape, is hereby recognized as an area
where the earth and community of life are
untrammelled by man, where man himself is a
visitor who does not remain.’
Wilderness protection in USA
• National Wilderness Preservation System
(NWPS)
• Covers 106 million acres (429,000 km²)
• Once a wilderness area has been added to the
System, its protection and boundary can only be
altered by another act of Congress
Wilderness protection in USA
• Five criteria to meet before land can be
designated:
• 1) the land is under federal ownership and
management
• 2) the area consists of at least five thousand
acres of land
Wilderness protection in USA
• 3) human influence is “substantially
unnoticeable”
• 4) there are opportunities for solitude and
recreation
• 5) the area possesses “ecological, geological, or
other features of scientific, educational, scenic,
or historical value”
Wilderness protection in USA
•
•
•
•
704 areas now protected under NWPS
2.5% of land mass of the main 48 States
Increases to 5% if Alaska is included
30 March 2009 President Obama signed
Omnibus Public Park Management Act
• Additional 2 million acres protected as
Wilderness
EU Development
• European Parliament Resolution, Wilderness in
Europe, 3, Feb 2009
• ‘Restoration of Europe’s last wilderness areas
are vital to halting the loss of biodiversity’
• ‘Calls on the commission to develop an EU
wilderness strategy’
• ‘Calls on the Commission and the Member
States to develop wilderness areas’
EU Development
• May 2009 meeting in Prague
• ‘Message from Prague’ Supported European
Parliament
• Action Plan for implementation
• Supported by European Centre for Nature
Conservation
Conclusion
• Some countries, such as USA recognise the value
of wilderness and provide high level of legal
protection
• Europe currently does not- however an important
start has been made
• The loss of biodiversity is probably the most
serious threat facing this planet and every species
• It is of the utmost importance for the EU to bring
into effect legislation that will properly protect the
last remaining areas of European wilderness