The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)

The events of the last 12 months have led people to appreciate the difference that nature makes to our lives more than ever before. Restoring nature will be crucial as we seek to build back greener from this pandemic, and in what is a huge year for the environment we will use our COP26 and G7 presidencies to take a leading role on driving a global green recovery on the world stage.

As a core part of our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it, and acting on the recommendations of the Dasgupta review, we are announcing today that we will be amending the Environment Bill to require a historic, new legally binding target on species abundance for 2030, aiming to halt the decline of nature in England. We hope that this world-leading measure will be the net zero equivalent for nature, spurring action of the scale required to address the biodiversity crisis.

These new measures will complement the existing provisions in the Environment Bill which will tackle air, water and waste pollution, which are critical to meeting our goals of net zero emissions, stemming and reversing biodiversity loss and improving public health.

The Environment Bill will have its final day of report and Third Reading in the Commons on 26 May, before moving to the Lords. We are aiming for Royal Assent in the autumn. In the year of COP26, the Environment Bill is at the core of delivering the Government manifesto commitment to deliver the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth and leave our environment in a better state than we found it.

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