The EAC found that existing Government policy and targets were inadequate to address plummeting biodiversity loss. This is made worse by nature policy not being joined up across Government, nor is nature protection consistently factored into policy making.
The Government is not on track to improve the environment within a generation, and due to a lack of clear statutory targets, its 25 Year Environment Plan does not provide sufficient direction to change this. Further, the recent biodiversity net gain policy, while welcome, in its current form with the potential for a lack of compliance monitoring and non-implementation of mitigation measures, does not go far enough.