By protecting their own interests in the face of cuts green groups and farming organisations will damage the environmental causeAs the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, departs for the summer recess, she may not be aware that nearly a quarter of a million people have signed a petition against cuts to the countryside. But by seeking to safeguard the countryside, some green groups have also felt the need to go public with proposed cuts elsewhere to the environment budget, including well-respected agencies funded by Defra. Have they unwittingly helped to do Spelman's job for her?In May, David Cameron announced that he wanted this government to be the "greenest ever". Defra's annual budget is in the region of £3bn a year and like other non-protected government departments it nominally has to make savings of 25% over four years as part of the comprehensive spending review. However, many
environmentalists believe that, under pressure from the Treasury, Spelman is already preparing to make far bigger cuts. The result has been an unprecedented campaign by green groups to protect their own interests and a wider environmental movement in danger of being increasingly at odds with itself.At Westminster tube, opposite the House of Commons, emblazoned across ticket turnstiles and billboards is a simple but effective message which reads "MPs: be a voice for nature – don't cut the countryside". It is very expensive advertising space normally taken by major commercial companies. But Spelman and her fellow ministers, told by Cameron to forgo the chauffeur-driven car and take the tube, cannot have missed the message. Nor can their fellow MPs.The advertisements are being run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and are aimed at getting people to sign its "letter to the future". It states: "Over the summer, the
UK government will be reviewing its spending. Massive cuts to countryside funding could have devastating effects on our
wildlife."The letter is ...
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