Friends of the Earth are now demanding that the right to a healthy environment be enshrined in new environmental rights laws.
This bill empowers communities to hold regulators and public agencies accountable and better protect wildlife and people by reducing the multi-layered pollution that affects their communities.
“Successive governments have failed to protect our environment from pollution and ensure that people can continue to enjoy the health and wellbeing benefits that a thriving nature provides,” said Sienna Somers, nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
Nature is exhausted
“That’s why we’ve ranked pollution risk areas by constituency, so that citizens and lawmakers alike can see how pollution is affecting their communities and take action.
“What harms wildlife often harms people too. Many of us breathe the same dirty air and live near rivers filled with sewage. We can choose to avoid polluted water, but many precious species cannot escape the pollution we spew into our living rooms.”
They added: “Polluters should be held accountable for the damage they cause and forced to clean up. Stronger laws to hold polluters accountable will also give communities the power to defend their rights in court, creating a cleaner, healthier environment for both wildlife and people.”
Friends of the Earth has mapped these natural pollution hotspots on a map that can be viewed online. here. Chelsea and Fulham were identified as the boroughs with the highest concentration of pollution hotspots, followed by Salford, Worsley and Eccles, Volkshall and Camberwell and Battersea.
Mapping natural pollution hotspots is intended to highlight that the UK is one of the most depleted countries in the world, with almost one in six species across the country threatened with extinction.
Habitat
Iconic species that symbolize a healthy environment, such as otters, shorebirds, Atlantic salmon and snails, have little protection from the raw sewage, toxic chemicals and slurry that is pumped into their habitats more than 1,000 times a day in some of the hardest-hit areas.
Excess nutrients in the wastewater cause algae to bloom, sucking the oxygen out of the water and literally suffocating fish and other wildlife.
Studies have shown that noise pollution affects the communication and foraging abilities of more than 109 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods, and molluscs living in a variety of environments.
Impacts include loss of biodiversity, declines in wildlife populations, and changes in vocal behavior, such as birds increasing the volume of their songs to compete with the city’s acoustic landscape.
Light pollution particularly affects nocturnal animals such as bats and moths. Most bat species avoid bright places, but this is becoming increasingly difficult as artificial light from homes, businesses, and roads increasingly encroaches on their habitats, even in rural areas.
Go swimming
Four of the 11 native mammal species in the UK that are threatened with extinction are bat species. Artificial light can also confuse bird migration routes, reducing their chances of success, survival and reproduction.
Air pollution is also a major threat to wildlife, especially pollinators that are essential for food production. Native plants in the UK are particularly vulnerable to nitrogen overload caused by air pollution, which threatens around two-thirds of species.
Toxic gases from air pollution can reduce bees’ ability to recognize odors from just a few metres away by up to 90%, making it virtually impossible for them to follow a trail of flowers.
Pollution affects both people and nature, from the dangers of polluted waterways, to breathing in toxic levels of air pollution, to witnessing the devastation of beautiful countryside and the decline of wildlife.
There are only three rivers in the UK designated as ‘swimming waters’ that are safe enough for swimming, and even these are rated as ‘poor’ in quality.
This author
Brendan Montague is the editor. Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth.
