We made the following response to the Defra Water strategy in the following letter, sent to Hilary Benn on 070208 (see below for external link to the stratregy document).
Dear Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs,
Pond Conservation welcomes the Defra Water strategy ‘Future water’ as an important step towards cutting profligate water use and alleviating flooding. But the current strategy has a lot of gaps. It entirely misses the point that freshwaters are amongst our most threatened habitats, and showing little sign of improving. In this response, we point out the gaps and make suggestions for protecting the freshwater environment.
Vital aspects of water and the environment are not mentioned in the Defra Water strategy:
1. There's no mention of the fact that river water quality hasn't improved in the last 10 years despite billions of pounds investment in sewage works. This is clear from the Environment Agency's own data.
2. There's no mention of the fact that so-called Catchment Sensitive Farming is not working for biodiversity. There is no scientific evidence that the measures supposed to help farmers stop sediments, fertilisers and pesticides running into the water(a), are having any wildlife benefits.
3. And finally, there is no mention of small waterbodies(b), even though we have about half a million ponds in the UK, and they are as important for biodiversity as rivers(c).
We make the following suggestions for protecting the freshwater environment:
1. Defra needs to recognise all kinds of freshwater habitats: tiny ponds as well as big rivers and protect them all(d).
2. Defra needs to develop scientifically proven measures to protect freshwater biodiversity from farming, and where prevention is not possible, set up protection zones around the most important rivers, ponds and lakes.
3. We also need to make some positive and genuinely visionary steps for freshwater protection. Pond Conservation suggest making large numbers of new unpolluted ponds which will provide a network of clean water havens across the landscape.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Jeremy Biggs
Pond Conservation Director of Policy and Research
Notes
(a) Diffuse pollution, from sediments, fertilisers and pesticides running into the water, affects 9/10 of rivers, streams, lakes and ponds.
(b) Ponds are not mentioned in the Defra Water strategy, except as a suggestion to store dirty water from new developments.
(c) Reference: Williams, P., M. Whitfield, J. Biggs, S. Bray, G. Fox, P. Nicolet, and D. Sear. 2004. Comparative biodiversity of rivers, streams, ditches and ponds in an agricultural landscape in Southern England. Biological Conservation 115:329-341.
(d) The EU Water Framework Directive cuts out all ponds (indeed no lake of less than 50 hectares is included) so that means about 95% of lakes and ponds are excluded from its protection.
