UK may have failed to protect wild birds with environmental law, watchdog says

Government appears not to be meeting legal targets to halt decline of species, Office for Environmental Protection says

The government may have failed to protect critical wild bird populations by neglecting to implement environmental law properly, the environmental watchdog has found.

Wild bird populations are declining across the UK. Under the EU, certain parts of Britain’s landscape were designated specially protected conservation zones when the UK was still a member state. They include estuaries, coastal areas and peatlands, as well as wetland areas where wading birds live, and places birds of prey prefer to nest.

However, according to the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), the government has failed to ensure adequate protections for these areas and as a result, wild bird populations are declining.

Ministers are now passing the planning and infrastructure bill, which would deregulate these specially protected areas and put more than 5,000 of England’s most sensitive, rare and protected natural habitats at high risk of development, according to a Guardian analysis.