Europe’s recent efforts to protect nature have been mixed. The EU failed to meet its 2020 biodiversity targets and risks falling short of its 2030 protection targets, too. In 2021, most of its member countries failed to pay their fair share of a $20bn (£15.3bn) a year commitment to protect nature, according to an analysis from the ODI in June.
Just eight of the 27 member states have revised their national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and only the same number have submitted pledges to protect nature.
“Instead of resilience, sustainability and planetary boundaries – not to speak of nature or biodiversity – we now hear the words competitiveness, boosting our economy, and helping the industry.
“This is not a small change to the tone of the green deal,” he said, “but rather a fundamental alteration of the underlying philosophy.”
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Many of us here have been writing about this for months as we see the rights of wolves, bears and other wild animals eroded by the current EU stand against nature. The rise of the "right" and the demise and denigration of nature is cited. And yet, when we pitch farmers against environmentalists, we might well ask why.
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In simplistic terms, a great deal of farming is now vassal to agribusiness and to the corporate supermarket state. So anything that environmentalists say that may be perceived as reducing farmers' income, is in a sense the "low-hanging fruit" for push-back.
Yet, environmentalists and farmers are on the same side in this situation – opposing the corporatist lobbies for an increasingly industrial agriculture, more than a sustainable agriculture.
My vision may be naïve, but as an example – just look at the complexity of applying for ELMs funding in the UK. Study the forms one has to fill in, and how farmers are supposed to assess their land by 100m hedge segments and the rest ... It is quite simply complicated to apply for this money, and it is therefore complicated for many farmers to occupy the same space as environmentalists. For a decent-sized farm, I reckon you could put someone on the application for a good three months at full-time, to do justice to the demands required. Who is going to do the monitoring? Take the photos? Record biodiversity? All this when you are trying to sort out flooded land, and what you can sow and how you break even.
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The EU is changing, and so is the land. As with farmers, as with people... We cannot move towards a more regenerative life within the constraints of capitalism. Because this pits the people against each other, and the people against their environment. Somehow, we are going to have to unpick this, and do it soon. I am looking at the flooded fields in my area. In October not January. We must work together.
#farming #resilience #regeneration #wilding
https://lnkd.in/eU43R243
