This week’s report from the new Office for Environment Protection (OEP) makes for grim reading:
- Particulate air pollution which causes ‘cardiovascular and respiratory diseases’ is ‘widespread and ongoing’
- Overfishing continues each year with ‘around a third of stocks over-fished in UK waters’.
- ’33% of the UK’s soils are thought to be degraded and 2.9 million tonnes of topsoil are lost through erosion each year’.
- Pollution from too much livestock farming is problematic: ‘ammonia is toxic to many aquatic organisms, leads to acidification effects on ecosystems’. Raised nutrient levels ‘remove oxygen from the river and result in deterioration of aquatic habitat’
- Untreated sewage is still a huge problem but even ‘treated sewage limits long-term improvements in aquatic ecosystems’.
This is exactly why we need the Climate & Ecology Bill which would mean restoring nature.
The Government’s new Environment Bill is just not enough – it merely seeks to ‘halt the decline’ in nature, favouring big companies’ profits over our environment.
www.theoep.org.uk/report/taking-stock-protecting-restoring-and-improving-environment-england
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