Natural England attacks the principles of the Aarhus Convention

Wild Justice and Badger Trust are mounting a legal challenge against the decision of Natural England (NE) to issue licences for Badger culling, made after pressure from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) under the previous government.

NE has asked the Court to increase the normal adverse cost cap (what you pay if you lose the case) from £10,000 to £20,000 for Wild Justice and from £10,000 to £30,000 for Badger Trust. The Aarhus Convention (to which the UK is a party) exists to protect citizens’ access to information, access to decision-making and access to justice. Taking legal challenges supported by the public is clearly in the ‘access to justice’ category. The £10,000 normal Aarhus cap is a quid pro quo – if we, as claimants win, we can claim back far less than we could under a non-Aarhus case.

We believe we have a good chance of success, but nothing is certain and we see NE’s unusual and aggressive move as an attempt to scare off legal challenges. We believe NE will best avoid legal challenges by making sound and legal decisions – if they appear to stray from the straight and narrow then it is in the public interest for their actions to be challenged and for the courts to decide one way or another.

Here is our joint press release:

Natural England trying to intimidate small badger charity and respected environmental group in ‘test case’

The UK is a party to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Aarhus Convention which protects the public’s right to access to justice for environmental challenges, because such challenges are in the public interest. Conventionally the adverse costs per applicant (payable if the legal challenge fails) are limited to £10,000 per claimant. However this week in a shocking development the Government’s body Natural England led by Tony Juniper has applied to the court to make the small badger charity Badger Trust pay £30,000 and the environmental champions Wild Justice £20,000 to take a case against them and Defra to conclusion. We have robustly responded to this unusual move.

The basis of the case is that Natural England’s own Head of Science called for the badger cull that began on 1 June 2024 and targets nearly 30,000 badgers for slaughter, to be halted as it would not affect the spread of bovine TB in cattle. This was overruled by the Chair Tony Juniper and the CEO Marian Spain, after Defra, under the previous Conservative Government, appealed to them to continue the cull to satisfy farming lobby sentiment. Therefore the cull is not being undertaken for disease control purposes.

The new Labour Government has recently announced that badger culling will end within five years and yet Natural England is aggressively defending a decision it was ‘encouraged’ to make under the previous regime which had a very different policy.

Peter Hambly Chief Executive of Badger Trust said,

“We are shocked that Natural England – a body supposed to conserve nature – is trying to intimidate us from taking legal action to protect nature. This is against the purpose of the Aarhus Convention and the way they are disregarding international agreements to continue with the ineffective slaughter of badgers shows how desperate they are to back a failed policy. Badgers are not the issue – cattle to cattle transmission is the overwhelming cause of bTB spread. If Natural England (and Defra) addressed this properly they would not be trying to subvert agreements like this. I think it is clear that Natural England is simply not fit for purpose.”

Wild Justice said,

“In Wild Justice’s previous legal challenges involving Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Ofwat, Defra and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Northern Ireland) no public body has ever taken this stance. In such cases we are David and the public body is Goliath. Natural England is attacking the Aarhus Convention’s provisions on public access to justice. To quote from the Convention:

‘The subject of the Convention goes to the heart of the relationship between people and governments. The Convention is not only an environmental agreement, it is also a Convention about government accountability, transparency and responsiveness. It grants the public rights and imposes on Parties and public authorities obligations regarding access to information and public participation and access to justice. Moreover, the Aarhus Convention is also forging a new process for public participation in the negotiation and implementation of international agreements.’”