Natural England Annual Report and Accounts

And on page 5, in the Chief Exec’s statement, after ‘We’ve had cuts to our budgets’ comes this…

Killing things is bound to be contentious, and rightly so, but that is not the only point to be made about Natural England’s approach to wildlife licensing. In 2019 Natural England were forced by Wild Justice to admit that their general licences were unlawful. That isn’t contentious, it’s simply not good enough.

Wld Justice’s challenge, and the potent threat of further legal action, has prompted a long (will it have been thorough?) review of general licences in England whose results we should see in the next four weeks or so. We look forward to seeing what DEFRA has come up with.

Meanwhile, Wild Justice has been given permission for judicial review of the Welsh general licences too – see here, here, here.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmental campaigner