麻豆传媒

AS LOCKDOWNS gradually ease across the world, I find myself in a growing state of anxiety. As you may have heard, this pandemic presents a historic opportunity to reinvent our world along more sustainable lines. I agree 鈥� but am gripped by fear that we will blow it.

Happily, some positive action has been taken. For example, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced plans to , creating one of the world鈥檚 largest car-free urban areas. Other cities have made similar moves.

But I can鈥檛 imagine this will go down without a fight, and elsewhere I read that the backlash against a green recovery is under way. US Republicans, for example, are reportedly developing lines of attack that paint the pandemic response 鈥� with its mass unemployment and vast rise in public expenditure 鈥� as a foretaste of the pain to be visited on people by pro-environmental policies.

Call me a cynic, but if I had to put money on who will win, I鈥檇 bet on the right. I am soothing myself with a story that I think shows a better, greener world is possible.

It is about a small nature reserve just outside York, the UK city where I grew up. Askham Bog is one of the last surviving scraps of fenland in a now intensively farmed landscape. Despite its small size 鈥� just 44 hectares 鈥� it is one of the most ecologically diverse habitats in northern England and is designated as a site of special scientific interest. It has also been under threat for years. York has an acute shortage of housing, and in the early 2010s, the city council identified land just north of the bog as being possibly suitable for development.

In 2018, developer Barwood Land . But in 2019, the city council unanimously rejected the planning application on various grounds, including environmental ones.

鈥淏og supporters feared the worst, as property development usually trumps the environment鈥�

Barwood appealed, triggering a local public inquiry. That meant lawyers, weeks of adversarial hearings and, ultimately, a decision by the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, Robert Jenrick.

I have to declare a personal interest. My father, a retired ecologist, is president of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, which manages Askham Bog and which led the fight against the housing.

It was classic David vs Goliath stuff. The developer retained the services of a formidable QC; the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust crowdfunded a war chest from concerned locals. The developer wasn鈥檛 oblivious to the ecology, dazzling the inquiry with the results of environmental impact assessments and plans for a protected zone it argued would boost overall biodiversity.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust responded with some pretty heavy duty ecology. It argued that building on the site would probably damage the bog, and that while the protected zone may increase biodiversity, the incoming species would be aliens.

In November, both sides retired to await what bog supporters feared was a foregone conclusion. Property development usually trumps the environment.

Then the world changed. Two weeks ago, Jenrick wrote to both sides informing them of his decision to uphold the council鈥檚 2019 verdict.

The ruling makes it clear it was a close-run thing, but what tilted the scales of justice was the threat to the bog and the 鈥渄eterioration of irreplaceable fenland habitat鈥�. That is all the more remarkable given ecologists couldn鈥檛 say for sure the bog would be damaged, only that it was 鈥減robable鈥�.

In a world where we have become used to expertise being trashed, scientific uncertainty being seen as a weakness and the natural world viewed as merely undeveloped resources, this ruling feels like a landmark. Yes, it is just one small bog in the north of England, but its name deserves to be sung across the land.