# Environmental protection report makes for grim reading

Zero Hour Published 13 May 2022 Updated 19 July 2023

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](https://www.theoep.org.uk/report/taking-stock-protecting-restoring-and-improving-environment-england)

Source: [https://www.zerohour.uk/news/environmental-protection-report-makes-for-grim-reading](https://www.zerohour.uk/news/environmental-protection-report-makes-for-grim-reading)
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