UK Agricultural Policy Post-Brexit Editor: Will Melling Writers: Bence Borbely, Trevor Chow, Tom Nott, Yang Zuo
7. Biodiversity 7.1 Overview Biodiversity in this paper refers to the collection of all forms of living organisms and their interactions. As a highly complex variety of life, biodiversity encompasses genes, species, communities, habitats and ecosystems. Therefore, it is unsurprising that biodiversity is crucial to human well-being since well-preserved ecosystems could ensure the quality of air, water, food, etc. Otherwise, loss of biodiversity could lead to extinction of animals and plants which could be potential sources of new medicine and huge monetary loss. However, given its non-excludable and non-rivalrous nature, biodiversity is essentially a public good which, despite its immense benefits to society and individuals, could not effectively rule out free riders and hence necessitates state legislation and government intervention. For example, the UK government has passed laws requiring official approval for the use of herbicides in near water and has established a range of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to protect biodiversity.211
7.2 Impact of Agricultural Policy Secondly, after elaborating upon the value of biodiversity as an essential public good, we need to analyse the impacts of agricultural policies on this public good and why the new 2020 Agriculture Act attaches great importance to biodiversity. Agricultural land use covers 42% of Western Europe’s total surface area and impacts 20% of the British, French and German vegetation. 212 It also involves 50% of their bird species.213 Husbandry, use of fertilisers and herbicides, and rearing livestock requires much land and natural resources, and invariably changes the local landscape and affects other species living in the same habitat. Given Europe’s more than 5000 years’ history of cultivation and grazing livestock, it is rare to find any landscape in Europe unaffected by agricultural activities. Furthermore, European lowlands, wetlands and woodlands have also been intensively managed since the adoption of chemical pesticides, fertilisers, tractors and specialisation of farm systems in the twentieth century which has rendered European rural landscape an integral part of traditional culture and European identity.214 Hence, given the close relationship between agriculture and biodiversity, the importance of carefully designed agricultural policy in maintaining both UK Government, ‘Biodiversity and ecosystems’, (2020). https://www.gov.uk/environment/biodiversity-and-ecosystems. accessed 31 December 2020. 211
E.J.P. Marshall, V.K. Brown, N.D. Boatman, P.J.W. Lutman, G.R. Squire, L.K. Ward. ‘The Role of Weeds in Supporting Biological Diversity Within Crop Fields.’ Weed Research, 43 (2003). 213 D.J. Pain, M.W. Pienkowski. ‘Farming and Birds in Europe: the Common Agricultural Policy and Its Implications for Bird Conservation. Academic Press, San Diego. (1997) 214 Péter Batáry, Lynn V. Dicks, David Kleijn, William J. Sutherland, ‘The Role of Agri-environment Schemes in Conservation and Environmental Management.’ Conservation Biology. vol. 29, 4. (2015) 212
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