Dear Luke and Rachael,
I am writing as chair of York Green Party, and our over 1,200 members and many thousands of voters.
I hope that you have read the recent government report “National security assessment on global ecosystems”. This is probably the most important reports that the government has published in many years. It makes quite clear that we are heading for ecological disaster across the world and that this will have a huge impact on everyone. As it says “If current rates of biodiversity loss continue, every critical ecosystem is on
a pathway to collapse.”[p7].
It spells out what this means for us “Collapse impairs an ecosystem’s ability to provide vital services including clean water, food production, and climate regulation.” [P7] and goes on to say that we have already exceeded the safe planetary boundaries for six of the nine critical systems:
- biosphere integrity (including biodiversity loss);
- climate change;
- land use change;
- freshwater change;
- nutrient flows (nitrogen and phosphorus); and
- novel entities (chemical and plastic pollution).
And among the report’s conclusions “UK food production is vulnerable to ecosystem degradation and collapse.”[p10]
It is clear from the report that ecological report is likely to lead to a marked reduction in food production, increasing conflicts (war), and a marked rise in the number of refugees.
It is therefore vital that the government, and parliament, take the report seriously and act on its conclusions. This must include protecting the natural environment across the UK and our waters. As the report says [p5] we are signatories of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; this mandates governments to:
- Protect 30% of global land and ocean by 2030;
- Ensure 30% of global nature is under restoration by 2030;
- Mobilise finance to close the funding gap of $700bn;
- Reduce risks from pesticide usage by 50% by 2050;
- Eliminate or reform harmful subsidies by $500bn per year.
Unfortunately, the current government is going in entirely the wrong direction. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 further reduces the very limited environmental protections that did exist to protect vulnerable and important habitats. The protection of the sea bed in marine protected areas is so weak that bottom trawling continues in most of them meaning that they are not protected in any real sense.
So, Please will you raise these issues with all relevant ministers, including the Prime Minister (to demand that an action plan is produced, urgently, in response to the paper), Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (in relation to planning), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (in relation to land use and land degradation and pollution from intensive farming) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (in relation to subsidies that are harmful to the environment).
If we don’t get this right then even more people will struggle to buy food and many will go short or have to rely on food banks.
I look forward to your action as a matter of extreme urgency.
In Friendship
Tom
Tom Franklin
Co-chair – York Green Party
