Guest election blog – Green Party by Alexander Lees

I am an academic (Reader in Biodiversity) at Manchester Metropolitan University.

In national elections I have voted for Labour since eligible (2001), although I am not wedded to the idea of continuing to do so. Locally, I am more pragmatic, and happy to vote for whoever is likely to win and commit to improving the local socioecological system. I should probably make more of an effort to be involved in the political sphere in the UK (much of my policy-relevant conservation work is focussed overseas) but have met with my High Peak constituency MP (a Tory whom I didn’t vote for) to discuss regional biodiversity conservation and have been invited to speak at events run by the High Peak Green Party.  My opinion on the direction we need to be heading is well captured by this text from this paper (of which I am a co-author) that we “must identify and lobby for policies that convey broad ideological shifts towards the subordination of economic objectives to ecological criteria. These policies may enable, or require, citizens and companies to make sustainable decisions regardless of their own environmental values.”

This is thus my review of, and my thoughts about, the environmental implications of the Green Party election manifesto.

Things I like:

• Use of the word ‘soil’ seven times and attention to its degradation. Conspicuously absent in many manifestos, but along with freshwater our most precious resources upon which we all depend – in this case something that really does deserves the label ‘too big to fail’. Much to like in general on their agricultural policies.
• The introduction of a Rights of Nature Act – as a society we need to move towards a system where nature is valued and protected for its own sake. Although payment for ecosystem services and nature-based solutions are useful concepts, they are not without risk and our research group has shown that a narrow focus on carbon can lead to loss of biodiversity.
• Delivering 30×30 (international country-specific pledges to conserve 30% of terrestrial and marine habitat by 2030); this is ambitious given that we are starting from such a low baseline, and the current government is way behind in reaching this target, although I’d like to see some figures for how this could be achieved balancing the manifesto goals for increased timber production and the potentially higher area demands for regenerative farming.
• Privatisation of utilities. Clearly this experiment has failed, and it is a great example of why the ‘Environmental Kuznets curve’ (EKC) – an oft-vaunted (by economists) rule that suggests that economic development only begets environmental degradation initially, but then society improves its relationships with the environment as per capita income increases – is nonsense. For other examples of why the EKC doesn’t work see our paper here. 
• A big funding top-up for DEFRA, the Environment Agency and Natural England seems a no-brainer.
• Much of the energy policy and climate policy as discussed by others in this series.

Things I don’t like:

Most of these reflect what I see as scarcity of nuance in a grey world rather than a visceral reaction against them but…

• Ban on all blood sports. Whilst I do viscerally dislike the idea of killing animals as a fun thing to do at weekends or on an overseas holiday, there is considerable evidence-based risk of unintended negative consequences for wildlife from an outright ban predicated on virtue ethics rather than utilitarian ones. Trophy hunting bans feature on manifestos from across the political spectra, likely because they are popular and quite apolitical with little UK economic impact. This knee-jerk reaction ignores the importance of trophy hunting in protecting vast swathes of wild land in the Global South, a fact well established in dozens of conservation papers and alternative models to replace trophy hunting are not currently scalable. I was one of many signatories among other conservation biologists and practitioners calling for a smart ban to weed out bad actors, and not blanket bans which jeopardise the survival of many species. Above all, as a nature-depleted country with a long colonial shadow we shouldn’t be undermining the success of nations in the Global South that have retained their large and often dangerous wildlife. The UK situation is very different, and field sports here are not in the same league for conservation co-benefits, but nevertheless I wouldn’t want to throw all the commercial shoots under the bus – here is a good example of why.   
• Although I am very supportive of establishing a ‘human right to clean air and water and enhanced access to nature and green space’ as advocated for by the Nature 2030 advocacy campaign, I am not currently supportive of a new Right to Roam Act for England as there is a tension here with a Rights of Nature Act. Disturbance by people and their pets is an increasingly important driver of biodiversity loss, so whilst we need to increase opportunities to connect people with nature, this should not be at the cost of that nature. What works in Scotland (population 5 million) will have different implications for wildlife in England (55 million) and even in Scotland wildlife is under increasing pressure. See zonation comments below.

Things that appear to be missing:

• Commercial fisheries, our most important source of wild meat, continue to be mismanaged but get very short shrift here. A subject conspicuous in the Conservative and Reform manifestos and entirely absent from the Labour one.
• One of the biggest questions, borrowed from the Green’s own fantastic Natalie Bennett in the House of Lords, is thus ‘What is land for’ and we need to be much better at answering it as a society. My suggestion would be better zonation to balance economic development with biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provisioning. I’d like to see some meaningful strictly protected areas too – areas reserved for nature alone for example, but we need to better balance these goals in a dynamic way. As absent in other manifestos we need to see a detailed plan as to how we can reconcile these competing demands on land. 

Overall assessment:

My focus was narrow by Wild Justice’s stipulation, but all policy is connected to the environment and cannot be divorced from it. Climate Change is a force multiplier when it comes to armed conflict, the displacement of people, food security, biodiversity loss etc. All manifestos need to be realistically grounded in our ecological realities and the Green Party’s manifesto is closest to recognising this.

Would I vote for these environmental policies?

Yes, although I will always vote tactically.

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.