Government
Recommendation (ff). Biodiversity is not adequately integrated into all Government Departments and we are not convinced that the Green Ministers Biodiversity Checklist is a demanding enough instrument to address this. A statutory duty upon Government Departments to further biodiversity should be accompanied by redoubled efforts from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (through the Sustainable Development Unit) to push the integration message across all other Departments and develop a simple system of meaningful targets, against which progress can be monitored.
The Government agrees that more remains to be done to integrate biodiversity into the policies and programmes of Government Departments. However, we consider that the Green Ministers’ Checklist, together with the requirement for Departmental Green Ministers to report annually on their actions does provide an effective mechanism for monitoring progress. Departments are able to set their own targets based on where the greatest environmental gain can be made in terms of reducing the environmental impacts. However, the Annual Report makes clear the minimum that each Department will do in each area of the Green Ministers work programme, while also making clear that some will go considerably further. The Ministry of Defence, for example, manages its estate primarily for military purposes but gives a high priority to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity in the UK. The subject is included in its recently published Rural Estate Strategy, and includes a target to produce management plans and proposals to demonstrate how to achieve their agreed contributions to species and habitat biodiversity targets. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions is considering the production of further guidance to Departments on how they can manage their estates to benefit biodiversity.
Published 21 May 2001
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