They are not essential.

“For what it’s worth, I think there are more important things than beavers,” she told a meeting of bankers and insurers in London.

Return of beavers to the wild ‘is being blocked by Defra dam’

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.co.uk 

The government’s plan to “build back beaver” by releasing the animals into the wild is being blocked by Thérèse Coffey’s department, conservationists claim.

The environment secretary said last week that beavers were not essential to meeting the global biodiversity targets the UK helped to set last year.

“For what it’s worth, I think there are more important things than beavers,” she told a meeting of bankers and insurers in London.

Boris Johnson said in 2021 that the UK would “build back beaver” as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) consulted on the issue. Defra gave beavers enhanced legal protections last year, seen as a key step in paving the way for releases.

Yet officials are telling beaver proponents that they can be released only into enclosures, not into the wider environment. Coffey said the department was “still considering” the proposal.

Her lukewarm view on the return of beavers is at odds with some senior officials. Tony Juniper, chairman of the regulator Natural England, speaking minutes before Coffey, said the reintroduction of beavers in the “right catchments” would be “very helpful” for the recovery of wetlands.

Juniper also told a recent event on the restoration of chalk streams that beavers could help with some of the water shortages facing the south and east of England. He said that beavers on the River Glaven in Norfolk had kept the head of the river flowing.

Beavers are considered a “keystone” species in ecosystems. The habitats they create can help other species. They have been mooted as a way to reduce the risk of flooding, because their dams can slow the flow of flood water.

Wildlife groups wrote to Defra in February asking for clarity about the release of beavers. Trudy Harrison, an environment minister, told them that Defra was continuing its “work with Natural England”.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in England but in 2014 they were photographed on the River Otter in Devon, the first in the wild for centuries. Defra initially planned to trap the beavers but granted them a licence to stay in 2015. A five-year trial concluded they were beneficial to the environment.

The Wildlife Trusts, a network of charities that runs beaver enclosures, said it was being hampered by a lack of government leadership. Rob Stoneman, a director, said: “The government has inexplicably blocked the return of beavers to the wild.”

Beaver projects being considered include one on the Isle of Wight and enclosures exist in Kent, Cornwall, Essex, Derbyshire and Cheshire.

The government is believed to be waiting for a report by the environment select committee on the reintroduction of the species. A Defra official said: “Beavers are just one of several formerly native species we have supported the reintroduction of.”

Maybe this will increase the footfall on the Redhayes Bridge, opened in 2011 at a cost of £3.75m, part of the Exeter Growth Point £5.5m regeneration project linking Exeter to Cranbrook and the Scienced Park.

A local wag refers to this bridge as the “Franklin Memorial Bridge” and tries to spot it being used every time they pass underneath. 

Owl has been informed that sightings of pedestrians or cyclists are rare but is open to other experiences.

(Cllr. Ray Franklin was the EDDC portfolio holder for strategic growth and regeneration during the “creative” phase of the “Build, build, build” Tory regime.)

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com

Work has begun on a flagship new hotel to be built right next to the M5 at the Exeter Science Park. The 142-room hotel will feature meeting rooms, a restaurant, bar, gym, gardens, and numerous car charging points – and is a new sustainable net zero hotel.

Zeal Hotels has signed an Exclusivity Agreement with IHG Hotels & Resorts for the hotel, which will be managed by Valor Hospitality. The property, which is due to open next year, is aiming for a minimum BREEAM rating of Excellent, with a target of Outstanding. Solar panels will ensure that the hotel will generate all the energy it requires.

Planning permission has been granted for the 142-room hotel and construction is due to begin next month. It will feature a meeting room, restaurant, bar, gym, gardens, and numerous car charging points and is the first of a number of sustainable hotels Zeal Hotels plans to open.

Dr Sally Basker, chief executive, Exeter Science Park Limited, said: “It’s very exciting to see work begin on Zeal’s innovative, ‘mindfully modern’ highly-sustainable, low-carbon hotel that will complement Exeter Science Park’s existing net zero carbon buildings.

“This collaboration launches the next phase of growth at Exeter Science Park and we anticipate there will be great synergy for both organisations, with Zeal bringing many benefits to our businesses, which will be reciprocated through the Science Park providing facilities, such as meeting spaces, for Zeal Hotel residents.

“We’re delighted to build on existing success to deliver an innovative, low-carbon destination that supports the development of a vibrant, STEMM community delivering extraordinary growth for our south-west region.”

Tim Wheeldon, managing director, Zeal Hotels, said: “The final pieces of our plan to create the first net zero carbon branded hotel are coming together and we are thrilled to be starting work on this innovative and highly sustainable project.

“Hospitality has been lagging behind other industries in its commitment to net zero carbon and we are looking forward to welcoming guests to join us on our journey. A fundamental requirement in the design of our new hotel is that it can be replicated and we are now seeking additional development opportunities in strategic locations throughout the UK.”

Cllr Rufus Gilbert, Cabinet Member for Economic Recovery and Skills, said: “It’s excellent news that Exeter Science Park has been chosen as the home for this pioneering development and it matches our net zero carbon ambitions in Devon. The vision of the Science Park has always been to encourage innovation and sustainability, and that’s exactly what this exciting project provides.”

Exeter Science Park is located close to junction 29 of the M5, providing a base for a number of science, technology and engineering companies. The hotel is expected to welcome guests using Exeter Science Park, Exeter Business Park and Exeter Airport, as well as guests travelling to Devon and Cornwall, all of whom will be able to use the hotel’s EV charging points.

Locally-sourced food and beverage will be a focal point of the hotel operation.

It’s not only causing water shortages but is now fuelling deforestation!

Soft, strong….and not as recycled as it used to be 

James Tapper www.theguardian.com 

Hoarding during the Covid-19 pandemic underlined just how important loo roll is to the British public. But working from home had another unexpected effect: less waste paper from offices, which means less recycled material to make toilet roll.

New research by Ethical Consumer magazine shows that the three main toilet brands have cut the amount of recycled paper in their tissues. It said the use of virgin wood pulp was fuelling deforestation, although paper-industry advocates dispute this.

The consumer organisation recommended that people avoid buying Andrex, Velvet, Cushelle, Regina and Nicky because more material used to make them is taken from felled trees.

It found that Kimberly-Clark, which makes Andrex, cut the amount of recycled fibre it uses for tissue and personalcare products to 19.3% in 2021, down from 29.7% in 2011.

It used less fibre, down from 3.53m tonnes to 2.85m, but almost all the reduction was in recycled fibres, while virgin-pulp use fell only slightly.

Sofidel, maker of Regina and Nicky, cut recycled fibres from 8.9% in 2019 to 7.3% in 2021.

And Essity, which makes Velvet and Cushelle, cut the amount of recycled paper in its products from 2.1m tonnes in 2018 (40%) to 1.9m tonnes in 2022 (36%) while it increased slightly the amount of fibre taken from pulp.

Shanta Bhavnani, a researcher at Ethical Consumer and the author of the report, said: “There’s so much awareness now of the importance of trees in addressing climate change so it’s really disappointing to see the big toilet paper companies cutting their use of recycled fibres.

“But it’s encouraging to see the growth in the number of alternative toilet paper products, as it means consumers now have many more sustainable options.”

She cited a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a US environmental body, that said logging in the northern hemisphere was having an impact on Canada’s boreal forests, with 11.3m hectares (28m acres) of forest felled from 1996 to 2015 – almost the size of England.

Recycling is more efficient than cutting down trees as it produces less wastewater and other waste and requires less energy, according to the Environmental Paper Network, a global coalition of more than 150 civil society organisations, which also says that making tissue from recycled paper uses one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions of virgin wood.

However, Two Sides, a membership organisation for forestry, pulp and other paper manufacturers, said that it was misleading to say paper production contributed to deforestation since “all trees used for making paper products are replanted”.

It said European forests had grown from 2005 to 2015 and 74% of all paper used in Europe was recycled.

It added that virgin pulp was required to maintain the recycling chain, as fibres degrade over time, so that paper can be recycled 3.8 times on average, though others say fibres can last up to six times or more.

All three companies named in the report take virgin wood from certified schemes like the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). But Ethical Consumer said these schemes had previously suffered from poor oversight and labels such as “FSC mix” were from forests that were not audited.

It recommended that people buy toilet roll made from recycled paper or sustainably sourced bamboo pulp with no plastic packaging.

Gareth Lucy, Essity UK’s communications director, said that he was disappointed by the report because there had been a big drop in the availability of waste paper during the pandemic – “from the huge reduction in office paper waste as workplaces were closed, and the transition of household bills and documents from paper to online”.

He added that Essity had been researching how to make tissue from other sources such as wheat straw. “Essity has identified and developed ways to process new sources of recycled paper, such as from used paper towels and takeaway coffee cups, and has invested in a new state-of-the-art recycled paper facility that can process a lower grade of recycle fibre.”

A Kimberly-Clark spokesperson said it was aiming to end the use of natural forest fibre by 2030 and that its UK operation uses 77% fast-growing, farmed eucalyptus fibres.

“Of the remaining 23%, we’re working towards reducing them further through the use of innovative technology, for example using enzymes to give the tissue paper the necessary strength” the spokesperson said.

Sofidel was contacted but declined to comment.

Summary of the findings of the King’s Fund comparison of NHS with 19 other health care systems.

Underinvestment, including in numbers of beds. 

On staff: NHS had strikingly low levels of key clinical staff, including doctors and nurses, and is heavily reliant on medical professionals trained abroad. UK exported a huge amount of nursing talent that is trained in the country and not held onto, instead making up large percentages of medical workforces in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. (the Independent)

Denis Campbell www.theguardian.com 

Britons die sooner from cancer and heart disease than people in many other rich countries, partly because of the NHS’s lack of beds, staff and scanners, a study has found.

The UK “underperforms significantly” on tackling its biggest killer diseases, in part because the NHS has been weakened by years of underinvestment, according to the report from the King’s Fund health thinktank. It “performs poorly” as judged by the number of avoidable deaths resulting from disease and injury and also by fatalities that could have been prevented had patients received better or quicker treatment.

The comparative study of 19 well-off nations concluded that Britain achieves only “below average” health outcomes because it spends a “below average” amount for every person on healthcare.

The sobering findings come 10 days before celebrations across the four home nations to mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS’s creation on 5 July 1948 by the postwar Labour government.

The King’s Fund pinpoints the NHS’s lack of doctors and nurses as one of the main reasons the service is struggling as judged by many of the criteria used in the thinktank’s analysis. On Thursday, the government will finally publish its long-awaited workforce plan to tackle staff shortages, which Rishi Sunak said on Sunday would be “one of the most significant announcements in the history of the NHS”.

The 118-page report compares the resources available to the NHS across the UK, and its performance, with those of the health systems in countries including France, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Singapore and the US. Among its main conclusions are that in the UK:

• Life expectancy is second worst among the 19 countries studied.
• People who have a heart attack or stroke are more likely to die as a result than in almost every other country studied, including within 30 days of admission to hospital.

• Survival rates for many of the most commonly occurring cancers, including breast, colon, cervix, rectum, lung and stomach, are “below average”
• Access to NHS dental care is “worryingly threadbare in some areas”.
• There are fewer CT and MRI scanners than in any of the other countries studied, and the number of hospital beds is the second smallest, owing to historical underinvestment in capital spending.

“The NHS … trails behind its international cousins on some key markers of a good healthcare system. We are not by any means where we should be,” said Siva Anandaciva, the author of the report and the King’s Fund’s chief analyst.

Anandaciva dismissed assertions by ministers in recent years that Covid-19 was to blame for much of the NHS’s increasing fragility and inability to provide urgent care promptly. The impact of the pandemic merely “compounded the consequences of more than a decade of squeezed investment in staff, equipment and wider services that keep us well”, he added.

On Sunday, Sunak repeated to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the delays in care provision, which are the worst in the history of the NHS, and England’s waiting list of 7.3 million, were “because we’ve had a pandemic”.

The report, which draws on data collected by bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Office for National Statistics, also found that “people in the UK are profoundly dissatisfied with the current state of health services”. Despite the NHS’s difficulties, though, support for its founding principles – as a taxpayer-funded system that is available to all and free at the point of use – remains strong, with little appetite for radical reform.

The report also highlights the fact that in Britain, unlike in some other countries, people do not have to pay to access healthcare, though long waiting times are forcing growing numbers to do so. It also praises the NHS for its efficiency, low use of second-line antibiotics and management of diabetes.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, the British Heart Foundation’s associate medical director, said that Britain’s poor record on cardiovascular health was a result of “a deadly combination of the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme and ongoing pressure on what was an already stretched health service, not enough NHS staff and space, deep-rooted health inequalities, and poor population health”

Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, urged ministers to make smoking obsolete, increasing the number of cancer screenings and plugging gaps in the cancer workforce to improve diagnosis and survival.

The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond directly to the King’s Fund’s findings. Instead, a spokesperson said only that: “This report recognises the NHS is one of the most efficiently run healthcare systems and we are investing up to £14.1bn to improve services and cut waiting lists, one of the government’s top five priorities.

“There are record numbers of staff working in the NHS with over 53,600 more people compared to a year ago, including over 5,400 more doctors and over 12,900 more nurses.”