A Step In The Right Direction?

On Tuesday, Liz Trust the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs delivered a speech on the link between the natural environment and the economy where she announced a number of interesting policy initiatives.

A highlight included the Wild Pollinator and Farm Wildlife Package, a 900 million payment scheme to encourage farmers to maintain hedgerows and strips of wildlife-friendly ground round the edges of fields, providing sources of food and nesting sites for insects. Other pollinator friendly initiatives included “Bees Needs” a website with guidelines and strategy to help individuals and groups improve their local environment for bees in both rural and urban areas and investment in research to gather more information on the condition of pollinators in the UK.

It is really encouraging to find an environment policy that has been so widely applauded as a step in the right direction, from conservation groups such as the RSPB to the Daily Mail. However, I do feel that initiatives such as this are a way of ‘greening’ the appearance of the current Conservative government whilst they continue to fail to tackle more complex issues such as our fossil fuel dependence (Trust, 2014). 

The full speech can be found here:  
Trust, E. 2014. Environment and the Rural Economy.   [transcript]. 4.11.2014. Available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/elizabeth-truss-speech-on-the-environment-and-the-rural-economy [Accessed: 6.11.2014]