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The gains from stopping the declines pale almost into insignificance when compared with the gains from enhancing the natural environment – not just holding the line, but improving our ecosystems across the board. This is the real prize for the next generation.

If you ask what the main physical infrastructure networks of Britain will look like in 2050, in every case the answer is both different and much enhanced compared with now. Take the electricity system. By 2050 it will be digitalised and decentralised, and linked into the transport system and electric cars. It will be transformed from the passive, centrally controlled electricity grid of today. Take communications. By 2050 it will all be fibre; we can expect to have massively enhanced 5G mobile and fibre networks. Train networks will be more integrated at the international level, and there may be High Speed 2 (HS2), Crossrail 2 and full electrification, whether overhead or with batteries. Roads will be intelligent digital highways. We have a National Infrastructure Commission to look into all this and come up with a 30-year plan to present to each parliament.⁴

When it comes to the natural environment – the critical infrastructure on which all else depends – this sort of ambition is largely absent. There are two possible reasons. First, it might be widely assumed that there is not much economic gain from an ambitious transformation. Second, the ambition itself might be thought to be beyond our capabilities. People have lowered their sights: they simply expect it all to get worse, and at best not to get much worse.

Both of these are wrong. The economic gains from enhancing the natural infrastructure are considerable, and may be greater than some of those projected for physical infrastructures. A major enhancement is well within our grasp, and the costs are not that great in getting there, especially when compared with the costs of some of the physical infrastructure ambitions described above. If, for example, HS2 costs £50 billion and Crossrail 2, say, £25 billion, think what £75 billion of environmental enhancements might look like in comparison. Add in some all-too-predictable cost overruns and these two projects will cost over £100 billion. It is unlikely that the gains from the environmental enhancements would be less than those claimed for HS2 and Crossrail. It is not just a failure of imagination that holds us back, but also a basic failure to do the economics properly.

Part three of this book tackles the economics head-on, showing why the benefits exceed the costs, and in many cases way beyond the narrow margin for HS2. The trick turns out to be all about how to measure economic prosperity properly. Once the costs are seen to be less than the benefits, the funding and financial frameworks can and should fall into place.

But before we get into the economics, let’s raise our eyes to the prize itself: what our natural environment could look like in 2050. As with the measures necessary to halt the declines, more of the detail is provided in subsequent chapters; here we take a high-level look at the opportunities.

There are two ways of going about this exercise. The first is to focus on the outputs. This looks at what we can expect to get out of the natural environment in the future. The second is to look at the underlying state of the assets, and the opportunities these assets provide for future generations. The first is very much about utility and hence is utilitarian; the second is about the capabilities and choices people will have about how they choose to live their lives. It is therefore a distinction between direct and narrow benefits and the broader opportunities natural capital offers to future generations.

The two are of course related. You need the natural assets to get the utility; the ecosystem services and the natural assets that are going to be given priority are those that have the greatest direct benefit to people. The differences come in the practicalities as much as the philosophy. Natural assets come in systems, not discrete lumps, and hence mapping the outputs onto the assets is far from straightforward.

Let’s take a look at the two approaches and see how the prize might be defined. Taking the outputs approach, there are some obvious direct-benefit prizes. In 2050 we can have much cleaner air. Children can grow up in cities without clogging up their lungs with particulates. By 2050 the air should be ‘clean’. Drinking water could be of better quality, drawn from cleaner rivers and aquifers. There should be increasingly diverse plant and animal populations. Wildlife should be thriving. People should get more out of nature, and benefit from landscapes that are more beautiful. These are all ambitions included in the 25 Year Environment Plan.⁵

The great advantage of starting with the high-level outputs is that they are measurable. The content of air in different locations can be directly measured. The health outcomes can be measured too. The quality of drinking water is measured all the time already, and we can measure whether it is getting better. The number and diversity of plants and animals can be measured too. How many people spend how much time doing what in nature is measurable. We can also measure mental health and obesity and relate all these to the time spent with and experience of nature (or the lack of it).

These outputs are every bit as measurable as the time saved by HS2 or Crossrail; by the speed of internet access, and the use time people get out of the internet; by the impacts on carbon emissions of renewable energy technologies; by the convenience and use of electric car charging and other outputs from physical infrastructures. Natural capital infrastructure is on an empirical par with physical infrastructure.

The fact that these things can be measured gives the 25 Year Environment Plan traction. Governments can be held to account for identified failures. There may be many environmentalists who claim that we cannot measure the beauty and wonder of nature, or the spiritual values and so on. They are right. But the trouble is that this does not get us very far. The Treasury can easily wriggle its way out of the capital maintenance and investment in the enhancements. Whether the benefits of the prize can all be measured or not, the fact remains that the costs can, so there is no avoiding the question of how much should be spent on the various competing outcomes and ends. There is a good reason why the Treasury thinks in numbers.

In narrow utility terms the value of these prizes can be assessed and compared with the value from investing in other infrastructures in the economy. Just as the value of HS2 depends on the other infrastructures that connect with it and support it, so too on the environmental side. HS2 will not work unless other bits of the road, railway and airport transport networks interconnect with it, and unless it has fast broadband fibre to facilitate its operations. Similarly, clean water depends on what happens in river catchments and in agriculture. The specific projects get their economic rationale from the coexistence and interaction of the rest of the networks. Ultimately, none of them works unless there is a natural environment to support them.

This creates a big problem for the application of crude cost–benefit analysis. Take HS2. It makes little sense to calculate the costs and benefits of the link between Birmingham and London without including the rest of the high-speed rail network to the north. Similarly, whether or not HS2 is connected to HS1, and hence the main European cities, makes a big difference to the potential benefits in the cost–benefit calculation.⁶

Carried across to the natural environment, these problems arise because the environment comes in ecosystems. Everything is connected to everything else. Hence the outputs depend on the overall environmental context. This means that achieving these headline outputs in 2050 will require attention to be paid directly to the underlying environmental infrastructures – to the state of the catchments, the farmed land, the uplands, the coasts and the urban countrysides. Even taking these separately is a questionable heuristic, since the catchments depend on the uplands and the farmed land, and the costs depend on what happens in the rivers and the estuary and coastal towns and cities.

We have to start somewhere, and the pragmatic approach is to divide things up into our five categories, while always accepting that it is going to be at best a roughly right answer.

The attention to the systems leads into the second perspective, starting with the natural capital assets, and setting the prize as having these in much better shape by 2050, rather than trying to calculate the utilities of each bit. Natural capital is about making sure that the next generation has these assets, so they can choose how they want to live. They can do their own utility calculations: it is not for us to prejudge these.

Taking each of our five categories in turn, again as a preview of what follows in the book, the catchments natural capital in 2050 could be much enhanced by looking to natural capital solutions to both river quality and flood prevention. Many rivers are a sad shadow of what they were before they were tamed. Since the Middle Ages and sometimes even earlier, they have been straightened out and controlled for energy through weirs and hard physical flood barriers.⁷ The results are not only far from pretty, they are often inefficient. Imagine a river catchment where the upstream is allowed to meander, creating oxbow lakes and slowing down its flows. Imagine trees taking up more of the shock of heavy rain. Imagine reinstating flood meadows to hold the water in winter.

These natural capital measures would restore and rebuild what has been lost, improve flood defences and avoid the costs of more hard concrete. This is something that can start now. The Cumbria catchment has been designated as a pioneer for the natural capital approach, and has already identified lots of opportunities. The new concrete canal being built around Oxford might not be needed, or could be constructed at a reduced scale, were money instead spent upstream on trees, meadows and better land management.⁸

Natural capital approaches would greatly contribute to biodiversity outcomes, and these in turn would open up additional health and recreational benefits to people. Imagine the wonders that restored water meadows might bring in snake’s head fritillaries, cowslips, barn owns, curlews, redshanks and lapwings. All of this is possible not only in the Upper Thames, but throughout our river catchments, and it is much more cost-effective even in the narrow flood defence context. The Severn lends itself to a similar approach, as does the Ouse above Pickering.⁹ The more pertinent question is whether there are any major river catchments where it would not be a sensible approach to prefer major enhancements to the natural environment at lower cost and with less emphasis on the alternative hard solutions.

Consider the cost–benefit comparison between all that concrete and natural capital approaches. The reintroduction of beavers could help slow down flows. Imagine if all of the main river catchments had thriving beaver populations in their upper river stretches. Imagine rivers as green corridors through towns and cities.

Turning to the broader landscape and agriculture, imagine if the monochrome fields were replaced with an enhanced patchwork quilt of many colours. Imagine if the harsh vivid green of ‘improved grassland’ were replaced by the complexity of shades of green that unimproved land still hangs on to. Imagine if rye grass were not the only species, but rather that sweet vernal grass, Yorkshire fog, crested dogstail and other grasses were once again peppered across our landscape. Imagine if the countryside were colourful again, and the simple delights this world has were set against the stresses of everyday life. Imagine if the hedgerows were put back, and the dry-stone walls repaired. Imagine if beauty was brought back into the landscape – and most of the landscape, not just the protected areas.

To do this requires a wholesale reconfiguration of agricultural policy. The vested interests would no doubt protest that all of the above is just a romantic ideal, and a dangerous one at that. They would point to the need to produce food, and even argue that food security is of overriding importance. They would want to claim that this ideal is not remotely realistic. But they would be wrong. For what the vested interests cannot claim is that current agricultural policy is remotely economic, or even that it focuses on the core food products or provides for food security. The fact is that it isn’t economic. It is chronically inefficient, greatly distorting production. It is hard to think how the economic costs of the current agricultural systems could be more adverse. The vested interests would probably not want to admit that the net economic value of agriculture as it is – the agriculture that has produced the monochrome landscapes, destroyed insect life and led to great declines of farmland birds – is in fact approximately zero.

In chapter 4 the startling arithmetic will be set out, and it is this that needs to be compared with the prize of the colourful, beautiful, vibrant and noisy landscape we could have instead, with all the economic benefits it would bring.

The prize would have pay-offs beyond the landscape and biodiversity. The river catchments cannot live up to their potential, and hence their part of the prize, without dealing with the agricultural pollution and silt. The coasts cannot escape the plumes of algae from river mouths. That is why it all keeps coming back to agriculture: it is the key to an enhanced environment. Without a radical change the ambitions will be disappointed. The fact that it makes economic sense to do this brings the prize within our grasp.

Of all the natural capital that agriculture relies upon, soil plays a central role. Even holding the line here is a big ask. The Fenlands will carry on losing soil for a long time to come.¹⁰ The prize is a healthy soil. Soil, like many marine habitats, may be largely out of sight, but it contains a mass of biodiversity, and it is the foundation of the food chains of almost everything else. The bacteria and fungi make plant growth possible. It harbours invertebrates and insect larvae. The prize of healthy soil is an economic necessity if farming is to continue, and if the broader biodiversity is to thrive. Even in the narrow context of carbon emissions the soil is critical. Improving the carbon content, which farmers have been depleting, increases the soil’s ability to support crops and helps in the battle against climate change. Economically it is yet another no-brainer.

Many of our uplands are a shadow of what they once were. To the untutored eye the rolling hills signify ‘wildness’ and ‘raw nature’ – they are anything but. These are managed landscapes, and they have been managed with specific interests in mind. These are mainly extensive agriculture and game in a mix of small marginal farms and large private estates. Our uplands are overgrazed by sheep and manicured for the shooting fraternity. Imagine if the heather moors were managed not just for grouse and deer, but also for the wider public benefit. Imagine if the hen harriers were not persecuted, so people could watch the male bird pass its prey in mid-air to the female, and watch as the birds hunt low over the land. Imagine if the wild flowers were given a chance by much reducing the uneconomic sheep densities. Imagine if deciduous trees thrived alongside the Scots pines and the larches, and dark and dense timber forests were diversified.

The costs of transforming our uplands are even lower than for the lowlands. Reducing grazing densities saves money. For the deer-stalking, the grouse and pheasant shoots, the problems are rather different. They are about incorporating the costs these activities give rise to, reducing the deer numbers and the destruction they cause, regulating the deposits of lead shot and the poor management of feed for the game birds, and enforcing the law. As so often happens when businesses do not pay for the pollution and environmental damage they cause, they get over-extended. Making the polluters pay would improve the management of the uplands. Making those who break the law face the consequences and pay the proper costs for crimes would be a big win for the economy and the overall economic prosperity of the uplands.

When it comes to the coasts, we are already on the way to opening up a path around the whole of England. Imagine what will have been achieved when this is finally in place. Imagine the economic gains it will bring to those whose health and well-being benefit, and to the tourist industry (which is much more economically significant than agriculture and without large subsidies). Imagine if the beaches were cleared of all their plastic rubbish; if the fish and the seabirds had enough to feed on; if fishing were managed for the long term; and if the cold-water corals and the underwater wonders were allowed to return to where they were before fish farms polluted them and trawling and dredging scoured them away. Imagine if there were no longer any need for Surfers Against Sewage, and it was no longer possible to see the algae plume from the Thames right out into the North Sea (joining the plume from the Rhine).

It might even be possible to make an economic merit out of cleaning up the beaches. It could be a form of national service, or a task taken on by local communities and local schools. They could take ownership of keeping their patch of the coastline clean, and in the process gain from the community involvement and mental health benefits – as well as the exercise it would involve. Many economic activities are outside the formal measured GDP, but they matter for prosperity.

Finally, imagine what our towns and cities could be like if we invested in their green infrastructure. Imagine how much healthier and more vibrant they might be. Imagine if every child had access to a green space within a few hundred metres of their home. Imagine if today’s developers actually built houses with proper back gardens. Imagine allotments for many more people, green roofs and green walls, and new and enlarged parks. Imagine if the parks were vibrant healthy environments, with lots of biodiversity, instead of the mown monochrome lawns. Imagine if plants were encouraged alongside railway lines, road verges and urban canals, and trees planted in every street. Imagine if nature’s much more messy beauty replaced the ugliness and sterility that straight lines and tidiness bring.

Britain’s gardens comprise an area the size of the Norfolk Broads, plus Exmoor, plus Dartmoor, plus the Lake District. Acres of Britain are gardens and they have an enormous potential as wildlife havens.¹¹ Indeed, they already are: gardens can be much more biodiverse than intensive agricultural land. Imagine if every garden had a small pond and a patch of wild flowers, besides the conventional palette of garden plants, fruits and vegetables. Imagine if all of these were chemical-free. This would be a great refuge for bumblebees and honey bees, lacewings and spotted flycatchers, swallows, frogs, newts and toads, and hedgehogs too. It would also bring many who have nature-deprived lives, and especially children, face to face with the beauty of nature. They might even dig up their concrete driveways and allow water to be absorbed by the ground, reducing flooding and creating sustainable drainage.

Putting all this together would create much greater genuine prosperity. It would be the right thing to do, because it would be both the economic thing to do and, in the process, would deliver the environment that many environmentalists who reject economic approaches would want too. It would also be ethically right, fulfilling our duty as stewards of the natural environment on behalf of future generations. There would be hen harriers and golden plovers and curlews and flycatchers, and there would be all sorts of plants, insects and other fauna.

It would not be a wild world, and it certainly would not be a ‘re-wilded’ world. It would be every bit as managed as it is today. Even those areas left aside would be deliberately chosen for intentional neglect. Deer would be culled, hedges would be reinstated and managed, rivers would be built around natural capital deliberately put in place, and city streets would be planted with trees. The prize is not an abandonment of the land to the ‘forces of nature’, but the replacement of a badly managed natural environment with a much better managed one. We have witnessed the disastrous consequences for people of taking the nature out of their lives, and we can redress this, but we cannot take the people out of nature.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was what we could pass on to the next generation?