UK ranked worst in G7 for losing wildlife and wild spaces

A league table ranking countries on the amount of wildlife and wild spaces lost because of human activity lists the UK as the worst in the G7.

A new report says nature in the UK is in a “perilous” state, having lost half of its plants and animals.

As Britain prepares to host the G7 summit in Cornwall next month, the RSPB, which produced the report, called on Boris Johnson to ramp up efforts to reverse wildlife declines and restore and expand spaces for nature.

The league table, based on data compiled by the Natural History Museum, also ranked the UK the 12th-worst of 240 countries and territories.

Scientists judge the damage to nature caused by humans in different countries using the UN’s “biological intactness indicator”, a scientific measurement of their effects on plants, animals and landscapes.

The UK scored just 50 per cent, meaning it still has only half of its plants and animals, compared with 65 per cent in France, 67 per cent in Germany and 89 per cent in Canada, which is among the best countries or territories worldwide for retaining its natural biodiversity.

The RSPB warned the UK is at a tipping point where “we will have lost more than we have left” if enough action is not taken.

Repeated expert reports in recent years have highlighted rapid declines in wildlife and other biodiversity.

They include that of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which in 2019 warned against the ecological emergency, saying the cost of doing nothing is much higher than that of action.

The RSPB’s last state of nature report revealed 41 per cent of UK species were in decline and more than one in 10 were at risk of extinction.

Human activities blamed include unsustainable hunting, changes in land use, expanding human development and farming and use of pesticides and other chemicals.

As well as the G7 summit, the UK is also hosting the UN Cop26 talks on biodiversity and climate later this year.

Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB said: “We are seeing both the long-term damage to our natural world, as well as the effects of trying to squeeze nature into smaller and smaller spaces to fit in with our plans.

“The result is that the wildlife of the UK is disappearing from our daily life and we are now at a point where we risk having lost more nature than we have remaining.

“With so much of what is precious to us at stake and at a time when so many of us have felt the benefits of being in nature through the pandemic, we should all be alarmed that while Boris Johnson is saying the right things about restoring nature within a generation, this is not translating into action in Westminster.”

The Environment Bill for England and Northern Ireland does not go far enough, she said, and called on decision-makers in Westminster, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to “set an example” by working together to save nature.

The conservation charity wants the leaders of the four nations to set legally binding targets to halt and reverse wildlife declines by 2030.

Turtle doves have declined by 97 per cent since 1970, and in 2015, together with puffins, they were added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species, meaning they are at risk of global extinction.

Only two breeding pairs of fieldfares remain in the UK, and they are on the UK red list for endangered species.

The Independent has asked the government to respond to the claim it is not doing enough.