The UK’s largest environmental charities have accused the government of failing to protect nature and wildlife as a new scheme for the sustainable management of land is published.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive, (SFI) from the Department for Environment and Rural affairs, (Defra) sets out how farmers will be paid to manage their land in more sustainable ways to combat climate change.

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The scheme is one of three environmental land management schemes being developed by Defra.
But a “shocking lack of ambition” in the SFI breaks Brexit promises and puts the government’s 25-year environment plan in jeopardy, The Wildlife Trusts, National Trust and the RSPB have said.
Defra’s plans on sustainable management have been long-awaited, with a shake-up of the subsidy system promised by the government in the wake of the UK’s exit from the European Union.
Farming accounts for more than 10 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the new plans from Defra had been touted as a way to reduce these emissions and improve land for nature recovery.