| On Topic
Natural capital
explained
Photo Credit Ian Dudley
Natural capital is all around us – but it’s often taken for granted. However, Britain’s natural capital plays a key role in our
economy as well as our general wellbeing. John Lockhart, Chairman of environmental planning and forestry
consultancy Lockhart Garratt (www.lockhart-garratt.co.uk) explains what natural capital is and how it impacts on us all.
ndoubtedly, one of the most
strongly emerging
environmental themes of 2018
has been the rise in
prominence of natural capital.
However, there does seem to
be a huge amount of confusion as to what
natural capital really is and what, if any,
relevance it has within our lives.
The short answer is the degradation of
natural capital is an important issue for
everyone; both personally and professionally. It
also impacts on so many areas of industry, not
just the land management, forestry and
agriculture sectors.
Fortunately, there are some helpful
resources and organisations around that can
provide further information to enhance an
understanding of why natural capital should be
a key part of your thinking as you plan for a
post-Brexit future.
So what is natural capital?
Quite simply, natural capital is our ‘stock’ of
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10 | Farming Monthly | August 2018
waters, land, air, flora, fauna, minerals and
oceans. As such, natural capital includes those
assets provided by nature which have the
capacity to generate goods and services.
Ultimately, it is the source of all other types of
capital, whether manufactured, financial,
human or social. The benefits that people
derive from this natural capital are known as
Ecosystem Services. Unfortunately, as we all
know, natural resources have biological limits,
either because they are finite (such as land) or
because the processes for reproduction or
growth restrict their rate of replenishment, as is
the case with timber.
With some areas of natural capital subject to
a number of threats ranging from global
warming to habitat destruction, the seriousness
of the issue has finally been taken on board by
the government.
Government response and policy
In its 2011 White Paper, The Natural Choice,
and repeated in successive manifestos, the
government has affirmed its commitment to the
preservation of natural capital by stating that it
wishes to be “the first generation to leave the
natural environment of England in a better state
than it inherited…”
To help achieve this aim the government
formed the Natural Capital Committee
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/natural-
capital-committee. One of the organisation’s
key recommendations was the development of
a clear long term Environment Plan, but it was
not until this spring that this plan finally arrived
in the form of Our Green Future: A 25 year plan
to improve the environment. This was then
closely followed by the consultation paper
Health and Harmony: the future for food,
farming and the environment in a green Brexit,
which started to set out the government’s
thinking on the future of agricultural subsidies
and land management support. The key theme
of this document is the proposed move away
from support for agricultural production to a
system of, as yet undefined, public payment for
public goods.
www.farmingmonthly.co.uk