Guest election blog – Conservatives by Chantal Woodun

My interest in the natural world led me to study Zoology and Psychology as a first degree, followed by International Studies, focusing on the environment and environmental policy.

Nature disconnection is a serious concern and in an attempt to do something about it, I became a London National Park City Ranger in 2020. Combined with my @wanderfulldn Instagram account, I draw attention to the vast array of blue and green space across our capital and beyond, whilst trying to show the benefits to our physical and mental health.

I also work with the campaign to save the glorious Warren Farm Nature Reserve, part of Brent River Park, West London from development by Ealing’s Labour council and have recently taken a part-time role as a tutor within the Sciences department at the CityLit, London.

I first voted in 1997 when the Conservatives had been in power for 18 years whilst Labour were promising to listen to citizens and drive radical change. 

These are my thoughts about the environmental implications of the Conservative election manifesto.

Positives (please refer to Negatives!):

• “Committed to leaving the environment in a better state for future generations” and to ‘maintain leadership on climate change’.
• They refer to the Environment Act, 2021 to halt nature’s decline by 2030 with a biodiversity net gain.
• To continue support for the ‘Nature for Climate Fund’. This includes the support of peatland restoration.
• Tree planting.
• They want to create energy independence and refer to utilisation of renewables (alongside the more secure gas and oil).
• 90% of designated bathing waters are ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ up from 76% in 2010.
• They will keep their 2022 windfall tax on oil and gas companies in place until 2028-29.
• Almost 50% of the UK’s electricity comes from renewables.
• Creation of new National Park.
• The expansion of their existing ‘Blue Belt’ programme.

Negatives/areas to be clarified: :

• Their commitment to “leaving the environment in a better state for future generations” is per their previous manifesto. Three years on from the 2021 Environment Act and they are already behind their targets. Six years to go so what is their plan and confidence on achieving this?
• They refer to climate ‘change’ and not ‘crisis’ or ‘emergency’. Language is important and shows their lack of urgency and understanding.
• The UK is one of the least biodiverse countries in the world, so they have a great deal of work to do to achieve this.
• There is no commitment beyond 2025 for the Nature for Climate Fund. Currently, Peat habitats are 87% degraded which sounds dire so how do they plan to improve this to a reasonable state?
• They talk about tree planting with no detail of how, where, why. Also, in addition, they must look at habitats such as meadows, shrublands, hedgerows and wetlands, especially if they are to tackle biodiversity loss.
• They will “ensure annual licensing rounds for oil and gas” to protect “200,000 jobs and billions of pounds of tax receipts.”. This is short sighted and antiquated. At this time of climate emergency, they must look to prioritise green energy and green jobs.
• 90% of bathing waters as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’! Seriously?! They do not reference the raw sewage pumped into waterways or that every one of England’s rivers failing to meet safety standards. Where is their reference to this and a call to ban companies from doing this?
• The windfall tax on oil and gas companies is far from adequate. Citizens are experiencing energy poverty so taxing a fraction of what they should is completely unreasonable.
• I found the ‘50% electricity from renewables’ looks to be closer to 40%.
  They plan to create new gas power stations to maintain a safe and reliable energy, stating the unreliability of renewables. This statement and their general language suggest they will continue to prioritise fossil fuel.
• Whilst I’m not against a new national park, the RSPB state only 43-51% of protected areas are well-managed. It would be better to improve, restore and protect what we already have.

Overall assessment/Would I vote for these policies?

I have genuinely attempted to be objective and fact based, however throughout writing this, my face would have demonstrated that based on their record and facts, I don’t believe anything they say when it comes to protecting nature and the environment. Their statements of being leaders on climate and stats on renewables and clean water just make it clear that they are deluded.

This is one of a series of opinion pieces on the political parties’ 2024 general election manifestos. They were commissioned by Wild Justice several months ago by approaching a wide variety of conservationists and environmentalists long before the date of the general election was known. Some people who originally agreed to write pieces found the date and short timescale impossible and had to back out. We did not know what they would write and their only brief was to pick one or two political parties’ election manifestos and tell us what they liked and didn’t like about their environmental policies. We didn’t tell people what to write and we haven’t edited what they wrote (except to squeeze things into a common format, to correct minor grammatical and spelling errors and typos). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Wild Justice.