With the lockdown finally easing, we now have a chance to reflect on the lessons it has delivered.  One of those lessons is that nature appears to have fared a lot better without humans than humans have fared without nature.  This raises the possibility that the lockdown might actually leave a beneficial legacy of a new appreciation for the importance of protecting the UK’s remaining “green and pleasant” spaces from its wildernesses to its city parks.

Nature managed just fine without humans

During the lockdown, planes were grounded, cars were parked and public transport was reduced to a bare minimum.  This meant that air and water grew noticeably cleaner.  With convenience foods and drinks off the menu, there was less litter and less plastic waste.  With humans forced to stay indoors, the outdoors became emptier and quieter.

Wildlife loved it and came out to play.  This being the 21st century, everything was captured for the internet.  It provided both a welcome relief from the grimness of lockdown and a reminder of humanity’s impact on the planet.

Humans did not manage nearly so well without nature

The 2020 lockdown will probably be debated for many years to come.  It is, however, really an academic debate.  Nobody will ever know what would have happened if the UK had pursued a different course of action.  What is clear, however, that the lockdown came at a high price, only part of which is financial.  It has also taken a toll on the nation’s health, both mental and physical.

This is particularly true of city dwellers, who form a large percentage of the UK’s population.  In cities, housing is notoriously expensive.  It generally costs a lot of money to have access to a private garden, even a communal one.  This means that even people on decent incomes will often choose to forego a garden and people on lower incomes are unlikely to have any choice in the matter.

Up until the lockdown, however, city dwellers still had access to public parks and commons whenever they wanted and they did.  They used them for exercising themselves and their pets, for socializing and for just relaxing in the fresh air.  During lockdown, however, this access was curtailed to at most an hour a day – if the park remained available.

One of the most controversial aspects of the lockdown was the fact that many local authorities restricted access to their city parks.  The stated reason for this was to prevent breaches (or open defiance) of social-distancing rules and, to be fair, there was some evidence to support this concern.

There was, however, also a suspicion that at least part of the reason for the decision was to save the cost of maintenance (e.g. emptying bins) at a time when local councils had to know that they were going to be facing what could be a lengthy period of financial challenges.  This highlights one of the key dilemmas of environmental protection, that of putting a value on “unproductive” spaces.

How do you put a value on nature?

One of the challenges facing environmental advocates is that it is often very easy to put figures on the value of developments but very difficult to put figures on the value of “unproductive spaces”.  Even if you know that developments are likely to have drawbacks as well as benefits, it can be difficult to impossible to quantify those in financial terms.  Similarly, the drawbacks of losing access to nature can be difficult to quantify financially.

The answer to this dilemma may be to stop trying to measure the success or failure of developments in financial terms and start measuring it against deliverables including public satisfaction.  The onus would then be on the developers to show how they could deliver what the public thought was important, including access to green spaces and nature, as one of the conditions of being granted planning permission.