OEP Office for Environmental Protection: Annual Progress Report 2024 [ISBN: 9781528644617]
Progress in improving the natural environment in England 2022/2023
Presented to Parliament pursuant to section 28(7)(a) of the Environment Act 2021
January 2024
Key recommendation 5: Develop and implement an effective monitoring, evaluation and learning framework
• Lessons learned from monitoring and evaluation need to be reported transparently and inform adaptive management of delivery of the EIP23, via a well-established monitoring,evaluation and learning framework, which is also needed for informative annual progress reporting. Government has an opportunity to improve its Annual Progress Report (APR) from 2024 onwards as it moves to reporting progress on the EIP23. [Executive Summary p. 14]
• The 2030 Nature Compact made at the G7 Leaders’ Summit held in England in 2021, for example, committed to the global mission to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
2.3. Key environmental trends
• Monitoring trends in species abundance and distribution provides a useful proxy for the state of biodiversity in England. Assessment of variation in species abundance is likely to identify changes in biodiversity earlier than species distribution.While EA21 targets have now been set for species abundance (the 2030 species abundance target and the long-term target to reverse the decline of species abundance),there is a lack of publicly available plans and data with which to assess prospects of meeting them.
• However, government’s interpretation of its commitments as undertaken in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at times lacks consistency or transparency. This is most evident in the commitments broadly characterised as ‘30 by 30’. The EIP23 lists a single commitment for ‘30% of global land and 30% of global ocean to be protected by 2030’. [p. 29]
• In the ongoing absence of published data for the particular indicator of species abundance as specified in the above Regulations, we have continued to rely on the index for the relative abundance of priority species in England. The index relies on 153 priority species from a narrow taxonomic range. [p. 31]
• However, the extent of SSSI protected areas on land and water has shown little or no change from 2017 to 2022 at both a UK and an England level, and the condition of SSSIs in England has deteriorated. Outside these protected areas, assessing the progress of wider factors that will contribute to achieving both the ‘30 by 30’ commitments is challenging without appropriate monitoring. [p. 32]
• A lack of transparency on how government intends to achieve either of its ‘30 by 30’commitments on land has meant that we could not assess progress towards these commitments. It is clear that on land, the area being effectively conserved and managed and the area of degraded ecosystems being restored both fall far short of these commitments, and this will require further action. [p. 38]
• Despite England having exceptionally well-established biodiversity monitoring programmes, our assessment has been limited by the evidence base. [p. 41]
Comment: No mention of UKBAP, Biodiversity Action Plans and Objectives produced under Rio Convention on Biological Diversity commitments.