Environment Bank applauds the fact that landowners and conservationists are collaborating in aims to ensure that a reformed Common Agricultural Policy will protect and allow sustainable management of the farmed and natural landscape, but says that additional sources of funds should be used to safeguard the ecosystems of the future.

David Hill of the Environment Bank said: 'We at the Environment Bank believe that the CAP reform must pay farmers for environmental goods and ecosystem services - high quality water, good soil and nutrient management, flood management, landscape diversity and an abundant wildlife, but other sectors will also need to contribute if we are to stitch back the fabric of the countryside to provide our environmental needs, including adaptation to climate change, as well as our need for high quality food.' 
 
He continued: 'We believe that payment for ecosystem services, rather than an income subsidy, is the only way to ensure wildlife and landscape is improved in the farmed environment. In addition, we believe that the planning and development sector has a role to play in providing additional income streams to farmers and landowners by the setting up of environmental markets where credits are purchased by developers to offset the inability of developed land to deliver ecosystem services in the future.'
 
The Environment Bank has already received huge support from farmers, landowners and policy makers for its ideas on mitigation banking as an important long-term contributor to the quality of the natural environment.