Environmental Audit Committee
Biodiversity offsetting inquiry
Executive Summary
1. The Field Studies Council welcomes this focused inquiry into biodiversity offsetting as well as
the wider inquiry into Wellbeing. This submission focuses on the current deficit of skills
needed to ensure the proper assessment and application of any biodiversity offsetting
scheme, as well as the impact that land conversion and offsetting (especially at a distance)
could have on education, wellbeing and stewardship.
Introduction
2. The Field Studies Council (FSC) is an education charity committed to bringing environmental
understanding to all. We currently welcome 145,000 visitors every year on courses to our
national network of 17 Field Centres. These include groups from nearly 3,000 schools,
colleges and universities. Established in 1943, the FSC has become internationally respected
for our national network of education centres and is the UK’s leading provider of curriculum
focused field courses.
3. The FSC provides informative and enjoyable opportunities for people of all ages and abilities
to discover, explore, be inspired by, and understand the natural and built environment. We
believe that the more we know about the environment, the more we can appreciate its
needs and protect its diversity and beauty for future generations. We feel that fieldwork
should be a vital element of an imaginative and contemporary education.
Information
4. We welcome the Government’s continued commitment to ensuring that England’s
biodiversity is protected and sustained, and this goes hand in hand with the Government’s
aim of ‘reconnecting people and nature’, as illustrated by DEFRA’s People Engagement
Group’s mission to ensure that ‘by 2020, significantly more people will be engage in
biodiversity issues, aware of its value and taking positive action.’
5. With this in mind, we take this opportunity to highlight the apparent absence of two
significant considerations within the Government’s biodiversity offsetting consultation
document. Firstly, the skills and expertise needed to properly assess both the importance
from a biodiversity perspective of the land under consideration for development, as well as
the ability to ensure that any mitigation or offsetting is adequate and sustainable. Secondly,
how the assessment framework takes into consideration how the land is currently being
used by the local population with regard to education, wellbeing, and stewardship.
6. Skills and expertise: There is a wealth of evidence underlining the current critical skills gap
within the UK’s environmental sector, particularly in practical monitoring and data
gathering, including taxonomic and identification skills1. The Government rightly notes that
1
Research by the Environment Research Funders’ Forum (2010) to identify the 15 most critical skills gaps the
environment sector faces in the coming decade highlights fieldwork as one such critical skills gap. In particular,
specific skills such as species identification, sampling techniques, collection and recording protocols and
methodologies, and technology use are in high need. Yet the ERFF found a decrease in the number of people
available to conduct skilled field research which has meant that employers are finding it difficult to recruit
individuals with fieldwork skills. Environment Research Funders’ Forum (2010). Most wanted: Postgraduate
Skills Needs in the Environment Sector.
For further examples, see: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (2009). Strategically
Important and Vulnerable Capabilities in UK bioscience; Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management
for offsetting to work, a number of features must be put in place, including “investment in
underlying data to generate a better picture of the distribution and trends of protected
species’ populations” (paragraph 34 of the public consultation document). Given the
current skills base limitations, we are concerned that this mapping will be noticeably
constrained.
7. Education, wellbeing, stewardship: Access to local and natural environments is vital to
people’s wellbeing. The Office of National Statistics wellbeing survey report highlighted the
disconnect between what people recognise as contributing positively to their wellbeing, and
their ability to implement these activities (e.g. 92% think that it is very or fairly important to
have access to local green spaces. However, only 53% visit any type of natural environment
at least once a week, with the Natural Capital report also highlighting that too few people
have “easy access” to wildlife due to the degradation and loss of many our countryside’s
natural connections).
8. Natural England’s Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment survey for 20122013 noted that two-fifths of the population had visited the natural environment in the last
seven days, and that 66 percent of all visits were taken within two miles of home, thereby
highlighting the importance of accessible local green space. Within the education sector,
there has been a noticeable decline in fieldwork and outdoor learning, including teachers’
ability to access local environments (see SCORE’s 2013 Resourcing Practical science in
schools project). The FSC is concerned that the assessment framework does not take into
consideration how changing the use of an area would impact people’s ability to access and
engage with biodiversity locally. Should the offsetting result in relocation of biodiversity at a
distance, this disconnect between people and nature would be compounded.
Recommendations
 The Government must ensure it has the ability to access to the expertise and sound
biodiversity data necessary to implement and support the biodiversity offsetting scheme.
This scheme could provide the Government with an ideal opportunity to lead the way in
addressing this critical skills gap.
 Education and stewardship use of habitat areas be explicitly included/weighted within the
assessment framework.
For further information, please contact Dr Steve Tilling (Director of Communications, Field Studies
Council) – steve@field-studies-council.org
(IEEM, 2011). Ecological Skills: Shaping the profession for the 21st Century 0 Phase 1 research report.; DEFRA
(2013) Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Expert Taskforce: Final Report.