Woodland Options within the
Developing New Environmental Land
Management Scheme
Chris Waterfield
Forestry Commission Field Manager Yorkshire
8th May 2014
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What this presentation will cover
•
•
•
•
•
CAP Overview
NELMS Principles and outcomes
NELMS Design
Prioritisation and Targeting
Time Frame to Implementation
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CAP Overview
3
The shape of the new
Common Agriculture Policy 2015-20
CAP
2015-2020
Pillar 1
Single
Common
Market
Organisation
Basic
Payment
Pillar 2 – Rural
Development
Programme
£3.1bn allocated to
environmental land
management
Environmental
land management
schemes (NELMS
and on-going
EWGS and ES)
Direct
Payments
Scheme
Greening
Payment
Young
Farmer
scheme
Growth
Leader
Farming and Forestry
Competitiveness
Environmental land management and the RDP
• Environmental land management is the primary focus of the next
Rural Development Programme (RDP) in England:
– Allocated 87% of RDP funding
– Worth £3.1 bn over the programme period
– Of which £2.2 bn (71%) accounted for by existing Environmental
Stewardship and English Woodland Grant Scheme commitments
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Defra CAP Reform Aims
 Want new CAP to be simple, affordable, effective
 Defra delivering new IT service
 One system for all schemes
 Working with users and stakeholders as we go
 Aiming to ease the burden of regulation
NELMS Principles and Outcomes
7
Health Warning
• Much of the detailed design of the scheme remains to be
worked out.
• The CAP Public Consultation Response from Defra
released in February 2014 provides more detail on the
design of NELMS and other elements of the next RDP.
• www.gov.uk/government/consultations/common-agricultural-policyreform-implementation-in-england
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New Environmental
Land Management Scheme
• ‘NELMS’ is a working title. Final name to be decided by Defra.
• An incentive scheme for farmers, foresters and other land managers to
manage their land more sustainably and deliver a range of public
goods and benefits - using EU taxpayers money, via the RDP.
• NELMS builds on 25 years of agri-environment in England and will
blend in former woodland grants (EWGS)
• Extensive evidence review undertaken to guide scheme development
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Why not just keep
Environmental Stewardship?
Scientific reviews of Environmental Stewardship over recent years have
highlighted a need for:
• ensuring we don’t pay for things that would have happened anyway
• improved spatial targeting
• agreements to deliver a more coordinated response to
environmental issues e.g. diffuse water pollution and habitat
connectivity.
• ensuring uptake of the right combination of options in the right
places (instead of free choice of options)
• improved targeting of woodland creation to support a range of
environmental outcomes e.g. soil protection and water quality
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What is NELMS?
• Owned by Defra.
• Delivered by Natural England with the Forestry Commission, Rural
Payments Agency as inspector and paying agency
• NELMS is a significant tool to achieve outcomes supporting:
– Biodiversity 2020 (consistent with EU Birds and Habitats Directive)
– The Water Framework Directive and flood risk management
– Government Forestry and Woodland Policy
– The European Landscape Convention
– Climate Change: National Adaptation Programme (NAP)
– Natural Environment White Paper and Water White Paper.
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NELMS can address multiple outcomes – but
may take a single focus where most effective.
Biodiversity
On farm
education
Soil and water
quality
Genetic
Conservation
Landscape
Carbon Storage
Climate Change
Flood Risk
Mitigation
Historic
Environment
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Secure public benefits and more sustainable land management
NELMS Basics
• Single Scheme: No Tiers, no upland or organic specific strands
• Open across England to farmers, foresters and other land managers –
but objectives will be prioritised and delivery targeted
• Voluntary
• Single menu of management options, including capital items
• Integrates former ES and English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS)
• Closer Integration in delivery with Catchment Sensitive Farming
(pending final Defra decisions on CSF future)
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NELMS Basics
•
Online application process – new CAP IT system
•
Online guidance: Replaces the handbook to describe the scheme,
application procedures and options descriptions. “Assisted digital” offer
being explored by Defra for those unable to access this.
•
Agreements last 5 years, with a few exceptions for 10 or longer
(with a break clause at 5 years )
•
Capital items available to all applications
•
Limited range of small scale capital grants available nationally as
capital-only agreements.
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NELMS Basics
Simpler:
• No more underpinning between scheme elements (ELS-HLS)
• No upland or organic specific sub-schemes, though these themes
are still supported
• Simpler menu of options to choose from
• No points/ha entry threshold.
Payment:
• Basis remains “income foregone” and actual costs (costs only for
woodland specific capital items)
• Standard payment rates
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NELMS Basics
• Single, annual application window
• Scoring system replaces points thresholds
• Single annual agreement start date – January 1st each year
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Two approaches to scheme entry
Self-Service
Invitation (Supported)
• Online application and guidance
• Online application and guidance
• Support via land manager’s
existing network of ‘trusted
advisers’
• Targeted to Priority Sites
• Delivery body provides one-tomany guidance and online advice
• Available nationally, but targeted
for landscape scale outcomes
• Management option prescriptions
not editable, but some regional
flexibility being sought
• Locally specific management
option packages promoted
• 1-2-1 support from delivery body
• Delivery body develops an
invitation pipeline (similar to HLS)
• Targeted to the most important
locations e.g. designations
• Access to management options
that require complex
management e.g. habitat creation
• Ability to tailor prescriptions
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Woodland Policy Priorities
– Protect: plant health, resilience, deer
and grey squirrels
– Improve: species and habitats
– Expand: woodland creation
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Woodland options within NELM’s
•
Woodland Planning Grant – to support the preparation of a United Kingdom
Forestry Standard (UKFS) compliant Woodland Management Plan. A prerequisite to access woodland options within NELM’s.
•
Woodland Improvement – to deliver substantial change in supporting
Priority Species, Priority Habitats and resilience
•
Woodland Regeneration – to restore forest potential damaged by nonendemic pests and diseases; to change the species structure of forests for
ecological reasons eg restoration of plantations on ancient woodland sites
•
Woodland Creation – to support the creation and establishment of new
woodlands to increase woodland cover for biodiversity, flood management
and water quality
•
Woodland Infrastructure – to support the improvement of access for
example in bringing under-managed woodlands into management
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NELMS Prioritisation and Targeting
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Prioritisation and Targeting
• Scheme remains multi-objective (single focus possible)
• Seeks “Right agreement, right options, right places” – with new
group emphasis where coordination across holdings is desired.
• Greater emphasis on achievement of landscape scale outcomes
• Transition from 70% scheme coverage (by area) to circa 35-40% by
2020
• Emphasis on ‘quality rather than quantity’.
• There will be prioritisation across the scheme objectives (unlike ES)
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Prioritisation and Targeting
• Top national priorities = Biodiversity and water management
(quality and flood risk).
– Particular focus on situations where these top priorities overlap.
• Landscape and climate change are overarching objectives, important
for all applications to account for and reflect.
• Seek opportunities to support historic environment, on farm
education, coasts and genetic diversity
• Scheme national targeting will reflect this prioritisation, plus:
– Scope for local refinement in which holdings are targeted
– Scope for local refinement of priority options and option packages
to be promoted locally
NELMS National Targeting framework
 Targeting model is being developed and
data sources identified – joint with EA/FC
 Data within the model is being weighted
and ranked
 Framework has flexibility to respond as
policy priorities are confirmed by Defra
 Opportunities identified in all areas
 The national framework will be converted
into practical information to be used
effectively at a local scale
This is
purely
indicative
of how a
targeting
map
might
look
Prioritisation and Targeting
The national targeting framework will help
us to identify the locations to focus
delivery based around:
1.Priority Sites
2.Priority Areas
There will be scope for local refinement in
partnership with stakeholders in each
region
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Targeting for Outcomes: Achieving landscape
scale outcomes
• NELMS will place an emphasis on achieving greater coordination
in the way the scheme is delivered to achieve “landscape scale”
outcomes.
• A combination of guidance and selection criteria will encourage the
choice of the right management options in the right areas and at the
right intensity.
• Application guidance will provide clarity on how coordination will be
achieved and demonstrated within individual applications
• Coordinated applications may gain extra weighting in application
scoring
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Refining Local Delivery – current thinking:
Partnership working between local delivery teams and stakeholders
essential to successful forward planning of delivery.
Main opportunities for partnership work lie in:
– Targeting validation and refinement
– Option promotion
– Coordination working together with land managers to achieve
“landscape scale” outcomes
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Funding for facilitation to achieve coordination
Defra CAP Consultation Response:
• There will be competitive access to a facilitation fund for a
number of specific projects which:
– encourage co-operation for groups or clusters of farmers, land
managers and other local partners
– are in areas consistent with scheme targeting maps
• Based on Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) approach
• Main objective will be co-ordinated delivery across land holdings
and at sufficient scale to deliver our environmental outcomes and
supporting and empowering farmer led approaches
• Continuing discussions with stakeholders and other partners to
develop this cooperation concept
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Timeline to Implementation
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Basic Timeline
• Submission of RDP Programme Document (containing NELMS
design) to European Commission (EC) expected Spring 2014
• Approval of the next programme by the EC expected Autumn 2014
• NELMS:
– Finalise scheme design by August
– Scheme guidance available from October
– Applications possible summer 2015
– Some priority woodland grants available during 2015 (TBC).
– First contracts live from January 1st 2016
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Summary
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In Summary
• New Scheme will be launched during 2015
• First agreements live January 2016
• Single scheme blending former woodland
and farming grants
• Twin approaches to applications: proactive
and self-service
• Twin focus on sites and priority areas
• More prioritised, targeted and coordinated
than before
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Thank you for
listening.
Any questions?
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