Council declares nature emergency amid decline

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council approved the declaration at a meeting on Tuesday

A council has declared a nature emergency and has pledged to take action to reverse its decline.

Members of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s cabinet voted to approve the declaration during a meeting on Tuesday.

As part of the measure, a number of actions have been identified including allocating at least 30% of land for nature by 2030.

The report to cabinet members said there had been a serious decline in nature across the UK since 1970, when monitoring first began.

It said many habitats had been lost and those remaining were in “increasingly poor condition”.

Councillor Linda Malyon said: “I think we should welcome this with open arms and make sure that it actually happens because if we lose any more species or nature it will be terrible what we’re going to leave for our grandchildren and so on. So we need to act quite swiftly.”

In 2019, a climate change emergency was declared for the region and councillors argued that the two were intrinsically linked.

Councillor Nigel Yates, cabinet member for climate change and environment, called it “the final piece of the jigsaw.”

Council leader Mike Gledhill said the declaration allowed the authority to turn words into actions.

He told councillors: “I think we all want to say we are doing what we can do, with the things that are under our control to bring about the help with the climate emergency.”

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.