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Protecting the Natural Environment

Purpose

To restore, maintain and enhance a healthy resilient natural environment that will benefit human health, wellbeing and economic development, now and in the future.

How will this be achieved?

Through the improvement of environmental land management by offering financial support for environmental services provided, as well as by offering information and advice to encourage and facilitate business practices conducive to maximising public benefits and environmental quality.

Why offer public sector support?

There are three sources of market failure that mean the socially desirable level of environmental services is unlikely to be delivered without government intervention. These are:

• Externalities, where the absence of a market for a public good means that land managers do not consider their impacts on society, for example, nitrate pollution of water.
• The nature of many environmental goods as ‘public goods’, which means that individuals cannot be excluded from their use e.g. provision of biodiversity and landscape public goods, leading to problems of free-riding since land managers cannot charge for their use, and thus have no incentive to invest.
• Imperfect information preventing uptake of best practice and environmentally sound practices.

This offer will secure the delivery of public goods as well as minimise the impact of commercial activities through best practice.

What will be offered?

• Government support for delivery of environmentally beneficial land management practices supporting provision of environmental public goods. The support takes the form of compensation for land managers (on the basis of income foregone) delivered through agri-environment, and forestry schemes. The offer pertains to the activities to support environmental land management (including forestry) delivered through the Rural Development Programme for England (an EU co-funded programme)..
  
• Environmental Advisory Services that provide advice to enterprises to adopt environmentally sensitive practices. Environmental Advisory Services are key to securing successful delivery of environmentally beneficial land management practices.

Not every business will receive every element of the support provided under this product. The services offered, particularly financial aid under RDPE, will be limited and, where appropriate, focussed on businesses where best value for money will be achieved.

Who will be eligible?

The offer is aimed at land management businesses (SMEs and larger businesses) whose business activities affect land, living things, air quality, inland waters and seas. The elements of the offer will be tailored to the specific needs of the beneficiaries and to their potential contribution to the natural environment.