How can the trade in natural resources benefit the environment, land managers and farmers? EAC starts evidence sessions with senior stakeholders in the green economy
Representatives of some of the country’s most influential environment and agriculture bodies will be appearing before the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) as MPs start their evidence sessions on ‘The role of natural capital in the green economy’.
Meeting details
Across two panels, EAC will be exploring how best the trade of natural capital – natural resources such as soil, water, air and the living environment – can be advanced in a way that not only benefits the environment, but also landowners and farmers. Natural capital enables the production of food, timber, paper and other essential everyday products. However, as Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta has warned in his 2021 Economics of Biodiversity report to Government, to maintain current human demand for natural resources into the future will require 1.6 times the amount that the planet can currently supply. In March 2023 the Government published its Nature Markets Framework, with proposals for scaling up private investment in nature recovery and sustainable farming.
In the first panel MPs will hear from the Chief Executive at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the President of the National Farmers Union and the Director of Policy and Advice at the Country Land and Business Association. The focus of this panel will be on how the natural capital trade can work for farmers and land managers.
The Chair of Natural England, the Chief Executive at the Land Trust and the Chief Economist at WWF-UK, will be appearing on the second panel. MPs will wish to explore with these witnesses how natural capital trade can best deliver genuine benefits for nature and for the environment, and to examine the context in which the natural capital trade is expected to operate. Members are likely to question the Chair of Natural England on whether the Government’s advisory body on the natural environment in England foresees any potential challenges in this developing policy area, and how any challenges might be avoided to ensure that the trade in natural capital does not have adverse consequences for the Government’s goals for nature restoration.