UK Wildlife At Risk As Environmental Protections May Dwindle After BREXIT

MANY environmental regulations based on EU law, will no longer be in effect in the UK.

Nature groups have issued warnings following the UK’s departure from the EU that Britain’s wildlife, from hedgehogs to pollinating insects, is at risk.

Up until now, EU regulations prevented hedgerows from being cut during the nesting season and buffer strips from being ploughed or sprayed with pesticides. Rules ensuring bare soils are protected from draining or from being blowing away. Regulations to safeguarding ponds and their wildlife, however, now without additional regulations, there is a high risk of deterioration.

As Euro Weekly News understands, post-Brexit can risk gaps opening up in environmental protections, which covers wildlife protection from hedgerow-nesting yellowhammers and small mammals such as hedgehogs to bees, dragonflies and pollinating insects.

The government plans to introduce the new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), to replace European oversight of environmental protections. An entity which should have the power and resources to make sure environmental rules relating to agriculture are implemented and enforced effectively.

However, Ellie Brodie, the Wildlife Trusts’ senior policy manager has stressed in a statement: “We’re really concerned that the Agriculture Bill does not contain the regulation that’s so desperately needed and nature will continue to take the rap.”