Environment - essential for everyone, everywhere.

This blog is about '...our real wealth - the natural world, the source of our resources and the basis of our lives...' as the top of the page asserts. It was great to see the Chief Executive of the government advisory body Natural England, Dr Helen Phillips strongly supporting this position last week in The Independent following the publication of the major report State of the Natural Environment 2008. The truth is that the environment is absolutely essential for everyone, everywhere.

As I have throughout many blog entries (a few examples here, here, and here), Dr Phillips describes how nature is a necessity not a luxury because it: provides vital public services; gives us the basic necessities of clean air, clean water and productive soils; provides the raw materials for energy production and construction; makes a major contribution to health and wellbeing; provides the foundations of our cultural identity; gives us pleasure and underpins tourism and recreation; and has the capacity to take in and store the the carbon causing climate change, as well as soaking up the excess water that causes serious flooding. Natural England's report shows massive decline in nature, despite the fact that straightforward solutions exist.