Staffordshire Wildlife Trust warns of environmental damage if Government ditches all EU laws
Staffordshire Wildlife Trust is warning of an environmental crisis if the Government scraps hundreds of nature and climate laws.
The Trust has launched new campaign Defend Nature to pressure the Government to do a U-turn over removing all EU environmental statutes from law.
A Staffordshire Wildlife Trust spokesman said: "Over recent months Government have released plans to remove important laws that protect nature and are also considering scrapping plans to reward farmers for managing land in a nature-friendly way.
"These go against the explicit promises the Conservative Party made in their 2019 manifesto and we have no option left but to ask our political leaders to represent us - their electorate.
"We are most concerned about new Bill that threatens to remove Retained EU Law (REUL) from the statute book. This includes 570 EU-derived environmental laws. Most of these are very sensible and have protected our most precious wild places and wildlife for the last three decades.
"The Bill gives the Government a deadline of 31 December 2023 to carry out a thorough review of these laws, and unless action is taken to keep, replace or update them, they will automatically be scrapped."
The Trust warned the UK's rivers and waterways, already the most polluted in Europe, will be worst hit with fish, water birds, mammals and insects all dying due to less regulation.
The spokesman added: "It is unrealistic that the Government will manage to review all 570 of these vital environmental laws by the end of next year. They’ve repeatedly missed deadlines on its environmental commitments, most recently the targets for nature’s recovery in the Environment Act, which were due to be published at the end of October. They’ve been delayed with no new date set.
"Now we have left the European Union, it’s right that we review EU legislation. But we must do it in a sensible and democratic way. We need sensible regulations that safeguard the things we care about –from the food we eat to the health of our local spaces and natural environment. But we must take our time to make sure we don’t throw out legislation which provides vital protection for our wildlife and wild spaces.
"We are urging the government to withdraw the REUL Bill – we have no objection to a sensible, consultative process that examines, updates and improves environmental laws, but that is not what this bill offers."
