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At the time this paper was produced English nature was the UK's statuatory service responsible for the conservation of wildlife, geology and wild places in England, including ownership and running of nature reserves and other sites of special scientific interes as well as providing information and grants covering some aspects of rural life. It is (was) a Government agency set up by the Environment Protection Act 1990 a funded by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), which in turn was formed from the Minitry of Agriculture and Department of Environment. This organisation of UK Government bodies continues raising uncertainty about the future of English nature. However, whatever the outcome of re-organisation, this paper is an interesting review of the subject from a different perspective, looking at the impact of large-scale biomass production on the environment and biodiversity, rather than simple from the technical viewpoint.

English Nature - Discussion paper on biofuels Anna Hope and Brian Johnson, Terrestrial Wildlife Team Executive Summary

• The UK has signed up to ambitious targets for renewable electricity generation, liquid biofuels production, and reductions in CO2 emissions. Reaching these targets is likely to be very difficult, and probably impossible without a substantial contribution from biomass energy, both from crops and from organic wastes.
• The UK government has already made important strategic and policy decisions on the use of biomass and biofuel crops to contribute towards UK targets on renewable energy, including the allocation of at least £350 million towards capital infrastructure for biomass electricity and heat generation. There is therefore a considerable amount of political pressure for these industries to succeed, especially the generation of energy from biomass. However there is also risk: the UK's largest biomass energy plant failed spectacularly in recent months, and Government is hesitant about lowering road fuel duty for liquid biofuels, a measure that the industry believes is essential at this stage.
• At the regional and sub-regional levels, detailed assessments are currently being made of renewable energy resources, and several planning applications for biomass-fuelled power stations have been submitted, although some of these have been unsuccessful due to concerns about local emissions. Waste materials will initially power many of the smaller-scale schemes, but future generating capacity may rely largely on cultivated woody biomass crops.
• Biomass and biofuel crops are an attractive proposition since they provide the opportunity of fulfilling targets on renewables, rural development and possibly biodiversity. However, renewable energy generation may still involve a significant amount of energy input in the form of fossil fuels, so it does not necessarily translate into significant CO₂savings. Viable biomass and biofuels industries may be relatively costly to set up and sustain, if considered in terms of the economic value of CO₂ emissions saved.
• Driven primarily by large-scale economic factors such as the relative profitability of different crops and land uses, the growth of these sectors could lead to significant changes in land use over which Government will have little or no control, at least at the local level. Outcomes for biodiversity are at best uncertain.
• Benefits to biodiversity and water quality may be partly secured by voluntary or compulsory agri-environment measures, as well as the use of the planning system where possible to ensure that novel land uses do not harm valuable wildlife sites. Research and development will also be important in the longer term to find improved crop varieties and management systems that will increase the efficiency of the processes, as well as reducing the impact on biodiversity and water resources.
• English Nature has opportunities now to influence the way in which the biomass and biofuels industries are set up, and to ensure that supply chains of both cultivated and waste materials are managed in a way that delivers biodiversity gain.

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• Anna HOPE / English Nature UNITED KINGDOM