Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Speech at opening of the International Year of Forests
Session on "Forests: An issue beyond just environmental questions."
The European Parliament, Brussels.
Ladies & Gentlemen, in the European Parliament I am President of the Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity & Sustainable Development.
Last year, 2010 was the Year of Biodiversity and it is a sad fact that scientists reckoned we suffered the worst biodiversity loss in 2010 that the world has ever known. They believe that between 150 and 200 species were being lost every 24 hours and that is still happening today.
We need to learn that biodiversity is valuable; it has an economic, social, aesthetic and practical value from which every one of us individually benefits. Biodiversity services purify the air we breathe, act as a global air conditioning system, provide us with rainfall and oxygen and fertilise plants. We have never put a price tag on these ecosystem services because they are invaluable. But sadly, some people think that anything that is free has no value and therefore can be exploited and abused.
Now we are learning that these things do have a cost and we are paying the price!
In my own Constituency of Scotland, there is a mad-dash for renewable energy, driven by huge subsidies which are being passed on directly to electricity consumers. Giant wind turbines are springing up all over the country. But sadly, such is the desperate greed of some of the fat-cat energy companies and landowners to get their snouts in the subsidy trough that they are now destroying large parts of our environment.
The Forestry Commission has admitted to cutting down 25 million trees in the past decade to make way for wind turbines. They are digging up great swathes of peat bogs for the same purpose. This is just sheer lunacy. Trees and peat bogs are nature's natural carbon capture & storage system. We are destroying our global air conditioning system to save the planet! It doesn't add up.
We need to care for our ecosystem and that means caring for our forests, caring for peat bogs and protecting and preserving our ecosystem. That is why this session on forests and the fact that they go well beyond just environmental questions is so important.
STRUAN STEVENSON, MEP
