Funding trends the implication for future nature conservation

Transcription

1 Funding trends the implication for future nature conservation This article looks at a number of significant strands of funding that have supported nature conservation in the UK over the last decade and considers how funding streams might change in the future. Spending on biodiversity has risen steadily Spending is recognised as one way of assessing the priority that is given to biodiversity within government. Defra released statistics showing that public sector funding for biodiversity more than doubled between and , reaching 525m in (see graph). Since UK GDP only increased by 19% over the same period, 4 the implication is that UK government has given more importance to biodiversity in recent years, but was the starting base relatively low? UK biodiversity spending as a proportion of GDP actually increased from 0.02% over the period to 0.04%, around 10% of environmental protection expenditure. This included: spending directly on reserves and conservation measures; related spending on administration and training; relevant research and development; and whether the spending was direct on biodiversity, or through transfer payments to other organisations (in order to remove double counting of financial flows). 5 JONATHAN SOMPER Given the current cost saving measures being championed by the coalition government, the furore over the sale of Britain s public forests and the subsequent government U-turn, there is uncertainty about the future for nature conservation and what direction future funding will take. Our whistle-stop tour of funds in this article includes: lottery funding; Landfill Tax Credits; a succession of government agency schemes; grants by charitable trusts and foundations; individual donations and legacies; and the growing recognition of ecosystem services. Let us begin at the Millennium Measures that changed conservation funding for good Of the restricted funding pots, probably the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and Landfill Tax Credits have had the most significant impact on conservation organisations activities over the last 20 years or so. Bringing in money for land purchase, management and conservation work, HLF had more funds available than previous schemes. Indeed, initially, when it was centrally administered, competition was less and grants were easier to access than the current regional set-up. This five year funding enabled Wildlife Trusts, for example, to make significant improvements to the management of their portfolios of freehold nature reserves. When the Landfill Tax scheme was launched in the early 90s it wasn t especially regulated and money What does government spends on environmental protection? At the beginning of the last decade general UK government environmental protection spending was 4.2bn in 2000/01 up from 3.2bn in 1996/7 and overall spending increased marginally as a proportion of GDP. Public sector environmental protection expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 0.36% in 2001, which was about average for the EU, with other countries equivalent expenditure ranging from 0.19% (Denmark and Finland) to as a high as 0.66% (Portugal). 1 About 15% of UK government spending on environmental protection is directed at capital investment and spending on the protection of biodiversity and landscape (i.e. nature conservation) grew from 360m to 510m over the period; representing around a 40% increase. Expenditure on research and development for environmental protection increased 10% to 265m in 2000/1. Public sector environmental protection expenditure was 5.9bn in 2004, an increase of 0.5bn on the 2003 total of 5.4bn, a rise of almost 10%. This was equivalent to 0.5 per cent of GDP. Year-on-year expenditure on nature conservation in the UK rose 12.5 per cent to 0.7bn ( 738m) in 2004, a further increase of 44% from bn was spent on measures to protect the atmosphere and on climate change prevention, representing 13.1 per cent of total expenditure. 3 It is a pity that there are no like-for-like robust figures for the rest of the decade readily available to make further comparisons, as Defra put more emphasis on surveying environmental protection expenditure by individual industry. Source: Defra e-digest environmental statistics website Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO

2 was quickly accessible. With their high gearing ratios against matched funds (10-25%), both these funding streams enabled land purchase and land management, and in particular, larger scale projects to be pursued than hitherto. The challenge now is to elicit additional funding for site development including interpretation for the public s benefit, as this does not generally fit within these schemes criteria. Think bigger reap greater benefits Large landscape projects like Paxton Pits in Cambridgeshire and the Great Fens project near Peterborough are examples of the direction of future funding. Paxton Pits Nature Reserve is being enlarged from 78 hectares to over 280 hectares with the phased release of quarried land over the next decade, making the site one of the county s largest nature reserves and securing the important nightingale population at the Pits. The nature reserve attracts around 120,000 visitors a year and a new environmental education centre was opened there in the autumn of 2010, funded by Natural England through Defra s Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, with match funding from Community and Local Government s Housing Growth Fund; consequently, visitor numbers are expected to increase. Similarly, the Great Fen project near Peterborough joins the National Nature Reserves at Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen, to create a 3,700 hectare wetland. The project received significant Heritage Lottery Funding (millions of pounds) for the rewetting of fenland landscapes. Restoring peat lands is a priority in East Anglia, as farmed peat soils continually lose greenhouse gases as emissions to the atmosphere. In one year, Holme Fen releases more than 7,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent carbon footprint of over 9,760 London to New York return flights. Holme Fen has been calculated to gain 700 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and so could offset 972 similar transatlantic flights. 6 This illustrates the importance of natural assets and their role in delivering ecosystem services, such as climate regulation, that society as a whole benefits from. The provision of ecosystem goods and services seems likely to be a significant driver of funds and policy priorities in coming years. 20 years of agency schemes and machinations Introduced in 1987 Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) schemes were landscape oriented rather than biodiversity led and for example, used to revert arable land into grassland. Although the scheme was superseded by Environmental Stewardship, some agreements still run until 2014 and have influenced landscape management for over a quarter of a century. The original Countryside Stewardship Scheme was an agri-environment scheme administered via the former Countryside Commission and successor bodies, and was largely reactionary with land owners requesting assistance. More recently, the Stewardship scheme and especially High Level Stewardship (HLS), intended to disperse Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) funding from Europe which runs until 2013, and has enabled Natural England to be pro-active and target specific areas. In Gloucestershire, for example, habitat fragmentation has been reduced by linking limestone grassland sites to create a larger network, so that wildlife can move freely, in this way realising significant elements of climate change adaptation. HLS has also been good at delivering environmental benefits, but as more money is ploughed into farming practices and focusing on how the land is farmed, less is available for species recovery work. Nevertheless, HLS money has successfully been used to target farmland birds, such as corn bunting, lapwing, grey partridge, turtle dove, and yellow wagtail; perhaps also a reflection of RSPB s ability to lobby. The scheme initially had targets of attracting 5% of the farm holding into the scheme, but it is actually achieving 12.5% on average in the South West; for the farmer it means that 12.5% of their farmland has a guaranteed income in difficult times a win-win scenario. The now defunct Wildlife Enhancement Scheme (WES) was mainly targeted at SSSIs or non-registered land, like geological sites; HLS is now the main scheme used to support the management of SSSIs. The Environment Agency has been involved in Wetland Vision along with partners with grants available until 2011, as well as other wetland funding; whilst the Forestry Commission offers five grants facilitating stewardship of existing woodlands and one for the creation of new woodlands. The Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund introduced to reduce the effects of aggregate extraction on local communities and the natural environment, has provided sustainable grants, for example, for water parks. There are also multi-objective schemes, (110 multi-objective target areas in all covering around one third of England), such as the one in the Cotswolds addressing arable wildflowers, limestone grassland, and protecting ancient monuments. Finally, funding may come from unlikely sources, for example in Wales, a Bat Roost enhancement was ingeniously funded by the local authority through heritage grants supporting the listed building complex and scheduled ancient monument. In contrast, Natural England s Countdown 2010 Biodiversity Action Fund although obviously biodiversity focused, was more of a PR tool raising awareness than actually providing new funding. Is the golden age of conservation funding over? The voluntary sector had enjoyed year-on-year increases in statutory income totalling 12bn in 2006/7, up 5% on the previous year and statutory income accounted for more than one third of all income the sector received. 7 Since statutory funding for third sector organisations is likely to decrease over the next five years given the Government s dire finances, those dependent on it will be vulnerable and around 40,000 organisations overall are reliant on some form of state funding including many conservation organisations. Following the Comprehensive Spending Review last autumn, Defra is required to deliver 661m worth of spending cuts by The core Department, which is responsible for just over half of Defra s 3.1bn budget, faces a cut of 23% to 1.2bn between 2010/11 and 2014/15; whilst its arm s length bodies like the Environment Agency and Natural England will lose more than one-fifth of their budgets over the next four years. The Environment Agency budget will be reduced to 652m. Natural England s grant-in-aid over the next four years will be reduced by 44.2m, this is equivalent to a 21.5% cut in Natural England s overall budget down to 155m and a 30% cut in the budget which the organisation directly manages (the other portion of budget relates to recharges for services provided centrally by Defra such as Shared Services, IT and Estates). 8 The Forestry Commission faces a cut of 25% to 33m (and recently announced 400 redundancies); in contrast the National Parks and the Broads Authority face only a 13% reduction to 46.6m. However, the 36 37

3 figures refer to just resource budgets and some capital projects; additional cuts to the remainder of Defra s capital budget are still being debated. 9 The significant reduction in their resourcing and the accompanying loss of scientists from these various agencies, raises the question of how they will be able to administer and deliver some of the EU derived funding streams. Unresolved issues in the marine world are dominated by the Common Fisheries Policy reform (CFP - the European Union s instrument for the management of fishing and aquaculture) and related fisheries activity. In addition, local authorities whose cash flow was affected by the collapse of banking in Iceland in 2010 and reduced revenues as a result of the recession and slow, if not stalled, recovery, will have less funds available for conservation consultancy and contract work. The recent local government settlement in England (for example, affecting budget cuts totalling 507m for in London boroughs) will likely affect non-statutory services, including those for ecology and open space management, with knock-on impacts on local grants for smaller nature conservation charities. One might conclude that there is actually more money available today than previously - it is more focused and doing more for conservation. However, there are undoubtedly hard times ahead and conservation organisations should prepare for a period of consolidation. In 2013 European funding streams may be rethought in a review of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and there are likely to be greater funding restraints. There are difficult choices to be made: part of the debate might be framed as can we afford those funding streams that do nothing much except enable places to be safe and look aesthetically pleasing, versus those that promote food security and efficient land management with tangible ecosystem service benefits? Charitable grants have grown, but from a low base The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF, 2000), 10, 11 Survey of grants made by independent trusts and foundations, examined the proportion of grants by main subject area and found that environment and animals constituted 3% by volume (65 grants out of 2,055) compared with 36% of grants given to Social Care. (Environment and animals defined as grants awarded towards the conservation and protection of the environment and animals ). The funding at this time was relatively low as trusts were just beginning to get involved with the sector and some were tied to matched funding criteria. The estimated total value of grants in the main subject areas was 30m for Environment and Animals and 233m given to social care. Whilst independent trusts spent 30m or 3% of their giving on environment causes, a relatively small amount, it is still as much as three times the amount local authorities contributed. The latter spent 10.4m, equivalent to less than 1% of their total spending in the voluntary sector. In contrast, central government provided 2,144m to environmental spending in the voluntary sector. Comparison of the average size of grants given to the environment and animals indicated that the average mean grant from small trusts was 3,800 and the average mean grant by large trusts was 24,400. In comparison, the overall average of grants given by small trusts was 4,700 and by large trusts 17,400. These environment grants were targeted at young people, who were the main beneficiaries, enabling them to experience and enjoy nature at first hand. The breakdown of funding was as follows: around two thirds of grants were for project funding (67%); around one quarter were for core funding (24%); and 10% was made available for capital grants. The Environmental Funders Network report, Where the Green Grants Went, found that the top 300 grant-making foundations directed less than 3% of their grants to the environment and less than 0.3% towards reducing carbon emissions. So although foundations combined total environmental giving increased by 68% (almost 10 times the rate of inflation) between 2004/5 and 2006/7 to 53.9m, it was from a relatively low base. 12 Environmental issues appeared a low priority issue for these Trusts yet climate change will inevitably impact greatly on their other funded programmes. Trusts that already provide environmental grants - including 50 from the top 300 foundations - 97 UK-based trusts in all, only gave 8% of their grant money to climate change in 2006/7, perhaps an indication that climate change had not yet established an irrefutable case in the public s consciousness. The report identifies three categories of environmental problems: habitat preservation and species conservation; the impact of human activity e.g. air and river pollution, habitat destruction; climate change and over consumption of natural resources. Whilst, the first two environmental problems have been readily addressed so far, the third appears more complex with large-scale ramifications for sectors and geographical areas remote from the initial symptoms. However, charitable trusts and foundations like The Tubney Charitable Trust and the Esmée Fairburn Foundation have supported big-scale, landscape delivery. Landscape-scale delivery was perhaps initially led by National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (ANOBs), but has subsequently been successfully taken up by the Wildlife Trusts over the last five years with their Living Landscapes programme. Partnership working is working increasingly more effectively in the conservation sector and now trusts are offering significant funds with the proviso that those organisations in the same field work together to address the issue; for example, funding was recently made available for shark conservation in Europe by the Pew Charitable Trusts on this basis, a trend that is set to continue. Individual donations for the environment have been higher than for most other causes A report in 2004 by CAF & NCVO examined the breakdown of the causes that individual donors support with donations. It found that 2.5% of the UK population gave for the environment, compared with 11.1% who gave for animals and 21.6% who donated for children or young-people causes; nearly one quarter of 38 39

4 the population, the highest proportion, supported medical research (24.4%). In terms of the cash given: 16.6% was given to medical research; 14.9% for children or young people; 6.3% for animals; and just 2% for the environment. 13 Breaking down the proportion giving to charity by cause in 2007/08 and 2008/09 the report concluded that: the highest, around 20%, gave to medical research, the highest cause in both years; 3% gave to the environment in both years; and 8% gave to animals. 14 However, it was reported in UK Giving 2009, by CAF & NCVO, that the average donation to the environment was relatively high at 28. This is a higher average than donations to all other causes, except for art and religious causes respectively, 30 and 33, on average. An overview of charitable giving in the UK, 2009/10, (CAF & NCVO 2011) indicated that the proportion of donors giving to environment causes has remained relatively stable between 2004/05 and 2009/ With other giving evidence, this is indicative of a relatively small core of loyal, welloff, environmental supporters; epitomised by the traditional grass roots supporters of the Wildlife Trusts, before face-to-face supporter recruitment was employed. However, adjusting for inflation the value of a 10 donation has decreased by 15% between 2000 and 2008, and was worth just 8.46 in real-terms by 2008; both donators and charities need to make allowances for this. 16 Since more than one third of donors (37%) use a regular method of giving, charities will need to request that these donors review their giving on an annual basis, so that they can make incremental increases in the amount given to keep pace with inflation. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) ended 2010 on 3.7% and prices rose by 1% on a month by month basis in December, the biggest rise on record; whilst the Retail Prices Index (the wider measure used in wage negotiations) was 4.8%, and approaching 5%, with transport costs up by 12.9% during 2010 according to the Office for National Statistics. This inflationary trend is continuing during the first quarter of 2011 further reducing the real value of donations. Around 15% of income for the environment is donated by individuals, not including legacies. UK Giving (CAF & NCVO 2010) highlighted that legacy funding is particularly important to the environment sector. In % of all legacy income went to the environment sector and only social services received more, 25% (around 0.5m). 17 Cash legacy gifts to charities average 3,500 and they are increasing by about 7% per annum, consequently, environmental charities need to realise their legacy potential. 18 The UK Giving Report 2009 (CAF & NCVO) analysed data from the United States and found that while charitable donations may fall in a recession they are restored after the recession is over: The trend over the past forty years in the US is of long-term growth in charitable giving, with short-term instability during a recession or economic slowdown. The report concludes that charitable giving can be resilient in the face of a recession and charities should take heart from this information, whilst also taking the necessary action to mitigate any falls in donation levels they are currently experiencing. 19 Back to the future In summary, conservation funding has increased over the last decade and the present time may be looked back on as a golden age of funding for nature conservation. Unfortunately, as we emerge from what has been a worldwide recession and a severe downturn in the UK economy, it is apparent that the next decade will be dominated by a period of retrenchment in the sector. The available funding strands are not likely to be as generous as they have been in the past. This coupled with a review of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy reform means that the future direction and focus of conservation funding in the UK is uncertain. What is key, however, is that we must embrace the big landscapes and find ways of working the land better, and link our objectives to social benefits. We need to meet multiple objectives and secure ecosystem goods and services more effectively in the future. References and notes 1. Environmental Protection Expenditure by the UK general government sector 1996/97 to 2000/1, Office for National Statistics. Harris. R, Mall. H. Eurostat UK Environmental Accounts 2009, Office for National Statistics. 3. Environmental Accounts Autumn 2005, 02 December 2005, Issued by National Statistics Drummond Gate, London SW1V 2QQ NB. For the purpose of this measure only biodiversity related grant money and programme expenditure has been included. The above figures do not include any associated operational costs. 6. Changes in wetland adaption and biodiversity; Palaeoecological studies from the Holocene of southern Fenland, Dr Steve Boreham, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. World Wetlands Day Conference 2010, CIWEM, Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change, Linking Policy, Research and Practice, February 2-3 Peterborough 7. Publications_Catalogue/Sector_Research/The_State_and_the_Voluntary_Sector.pdf 8. Natural England grant-in-aid settlement update 21 December 2010, about_us/finance/grant-in-aidsettlement.aspx 9. Natural England and Environment Agency budget cuts revealed 20 December 2010 By Alistair Driver A Survey of grants made by independent trusts and foundations, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), Jeremy Vincent, Cathy Pharoah, West malling, Kent, Dimensions 2000, Volume 3, Patterns of Independent Grant- Making in the UK. 11. Trust sample included all trusts giving away 32m on or more per annum (63 respondents) representing 88% of all large trusts; a one-in-ten random sample of all trusts giving between 30,000 and 2m comprising 154 small trust respondents in all representing 69% of these trusts, but 82% by value (as a percent value of all grant making in sub-sample) granting 39m. 12. Philanthropy failing to combat climate change, 23/11/09, Andrew Holt, ctphilcc.php Philanthropic response to climate change inadequate, says report,ben Eyre, 26 November 2009, philanthrophyuk. 13. Inside Research, October 2004, issue 21, CAF, NCVO p3 14. The impact of the recession on charitable giving in the UK, CAF, NCVO, November UK Giving 2010, An overview of charitable giving in the UK, 2009/10, Supplementary charts, Figure 1 Proportion of donors giving to different causes, 2004/ /10 (%) CAF/NCVO What impact does inflation have on charitable giving?, Charities Aid Foundation and National Council for Voluntary Organisations, March UK Giving 2010, An overview of charitable giving in the UK, 2009/10, December

5 ECOS 32(1) Mathew Little, Third Sector, 15 June 2010, Legacy income still falling, but not as fast as last year, DCB604F328A87D53/?DCMP=EMC-FundraisingBulletin 19. The impact of the recession on charitable giving in the UK, CAF, NCVO, November 2009 Jonathan Somper is an independent consultant who provides practical marketing support, tailored research, and membership know-how to charities, companies and organisations committed to the environment and a more sustainable future. mail@jonathansomper.plus.com Drain blocking to aid peatland restoration in Ireland. Part of Rachel Kempson s experience in volunteering - see following article. Photo: Cillian Breathnach 42