Section:GDN 1N PaGe:19 Edition Date:190801 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 31/7/2019 19:56 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Thursday 1 August 2019 The Guardian •
National^19
Patrick Barkham
A new generation of national nature
reserves are being created to help
improve people’s health and miti-
gate the eff ects of climatic extremes,
according to the chair of the govern-
ment’s conservation watchdog.
The South London Downs reserve is
the fi rst in a series of landscapes that
will be designated a national nature
reserve this year, said Tony Juniper ,
the chair of Natural England. Several
more will follow this autumn, includ-
ing what he described as one “very
signifi cant” newly protected area.
Juniper said these new reserves
highlighted his austerity-hit agency’s
determination to do “the practical
work of conservation” that would also
help the government meet its target of
net zero emissions and help England
adapt to global heating.
The South London Downs reserve is
only the third national nature reserve
to be created in the capital, and pro-
tects 417 hectares (1,0 30 acres) of
fl ower-rich chalk downland on the bor-
der of Croydon and Surrey. It includ es
Farthing Downs and Happy Valley.
Juniper said: “It’s a wonderful area of
natural beauty, it’s very close to where
people live and another reminder of
how much benefi t we can get for our
society through the intelligent and
wise management of the natural envi-
ronment and its restoration.”
In a wide-ranging interview on his
vision for Natural England, which he
said ha d been “massively depleted” by
budget cuts , Juniper welcomed Boris
Johnson’s reaffi rmation of the emis-
sions target and said the agency could
play “a central role in helping govern-
ment meet net zero”.
Juniper , who has campaigned on
the climate emergency for years as a
former executive director of Friends
of the Earth, said tackling greenhouse
gas emissions had so far focused on
reducing the use of fossil fuels and
electrifying transport.
But he said climate crisis policy
and the nature conservation agenda
“should be two sides of the same coin”.
Restoring peatland helps capture car-
bon and prevent fl ooding, for instance,
while forest restoration and wildlife-
friendly food production can also
sequester more carbon.
According to Juniper, such solu-
tions require a coordinated effort
across government and its agen-
cies including Natural England, the
Forestry Commission and the Environ-
ment Agency. He said he hoped nature
could be restored in England through
legally binding targets similar to thosefor climate change , via a post-Brexit
environment bill. “It’s really about the
extent to which the country wants to
own that kind of long-term ambition,
and I think we do,” he said.
He welcomed the emergence of
Extinction Rebellion and the school
climate strikes and said such mass
protests helped him fi ght for more
resources. “When it comes to the chil-
dren and the school strikes, nobody
has got more moral authority than the
young people who will own the con-
sequences ,” he said.
Juniper’s appointment as chair of
Natural England in April was a sur-
prise, not least because the infl uential
environmentalist was joining a belea-
guered organisation whose funding
has been halved over fi ve years.
C ritics have attacked Natural Eng-
land for licensing the badger cull and
pursuing hen harrier “brood man-
agement” whereby chicks of th e
endangered bird of prey are removed
from nests on grouse moors to help
the shooting industry.
Juniper signalled his discomfort
with the badger cull but said it was the
watchdog ’s statutory duty to license it.
He said: “I think it’s fair to say that Nat-
ural England would not have advised
that a badger cull should be done but
the reality is that we’ve been asked to
do it and under the framework agree-
ment that we have with Defra [the
Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Aff airs] we are obliged to
take forward that policy.”
Critics of Natural England’s “hen
harrier recovery plan” say it rewards
law breakers, with hen harriers illegally
killed to ensure there are enough red
grouse to shoot. But Juniper arguedthe trial was vital to ensure shooting
stakeholders assisted the hen harrier’s
recovery. “We’ve got more chance of
convincing those people to come on
the journey if they can see they’ve got
part of what they think is the solution
for them also on the table,” he said.
“My only benchmark is whether the
hen harrier recovers or not .”
Juniper said he had not yet been
promised any extra resources but he
was determined to show that look-
ing after the natural environment
was “an essential investment in the
future of our country”. He said: “This
is ... an investment in resilience against
climate change, it’s an investment in
essential infrastructure in terms of
fl ood protection and water purity and
it’s also an investment in long-term
food security because in the end all
our food comes from nature .”New nature reserves
will help tackle the
climate crisis, says
conservation chief
Care system
‘struggling to
cope’ with
rising number
of teenagers
Frances PerraudinThe care system is struggling to cope
with rising demand from older chil-
dren and teenagers, the children’s
commissioner has said.
Research by the commissioner’s
offi ce found the number of teenagers
in care rose by 21% between 2012-
and 2017-18, while the number aged
fi ve or under fell by 15%.
There were 25% more over-16s
entering care in 2017-18 than in 2013-
14, a bigger increase than for any other
age group. As a result, nearly one in
four children in care (23%) is now over- Two in fi ve (39%) are aged 10 to 15.
Anne Longfield , the children’s
commissioner , warned that services
were struggling to cope with the ris-
ing number of teenagers, who were
more likely to have vulnerabilities that
required specialist support. They are
signifi cantly more likely than younger
children to be vulnerable to sex-
ual exploitation, running away from
home, gangs, traffi cking and drug use.
“ Too many of them are ‘pin balling’
around the system, changing home
and family, school and social worker,”
Longfi eld said. “Often they have the
most complex and expensive needs. In
one local authority, 20% of the entire
children’s services budget is being
spent on just 10 children. This is com-
pletely unsustainable.”
The commissioner’s annual stabil-
ity index, which looks at the number
of times children in care change their
home placement, school or social
worker, found that one in 10 experi-
enced two or more home moves in
2017-18. One in 10 moved school in
the middle of the school year and just
over one in four experienced two or
more changes of social worker.
“It is clear that we have a care sys-
tem which is playing catch up,” said
Longfi eld. “The new norm is shifting
so that fewer babies and very young
children are being taken off parents
who cannot cope.
“Instead it is teenagers who are
being taken into care because they are
experiencing issues such as criminal
or sexual exploitation, going missing
from home, and parents being unable
to protect them.
“The result is a care system that is
struggling to cope and which in turn is
not providing the stability that many
highly vulnerable children need.”
The number of children in care sits
at a record high. Figures released at the
end of 2018 show there were 75,
looked-after children in England at the
end of March that year, up 4% on 2017.
In 2008 the total was about 60,000.
In February, research by the fi ve
biggest children’s charities found
that while demand was rising, Eng-
land’s child protection and support
services were in fi nancial crisis, with
the heaviest cuts falling on the most
deprived areas.
‘This is an investment
in resilience against
climate change and
also an investment
in long-term
food security’Tony Juniper
Chair, Natural
England▲ Dogs on Farthing Down in Surrey, part of the South London Downs, which
will be designated a national nature reserve later this year PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY▲ Another part of the South London Downs reserve, described as ‘a wonderful
area of natural beauty’, which covers 417 hectares of land PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY
Happy Valley
in the South
London Downs
reserve, one
of the newly
protected areas
PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMYРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS