if there's any Willa tips roundabouts
when I get them closer we'll see we're
in one of the last strongholds of an
animal that's already disappeared from
much of the UK it looks like another
great tip but I'm not sure actually not
elicit then to monitor and count the
birds the nets are up the first to be
untangled is a blue tips taken to the
hide to be measured rings and release 64
winged single condition but it's the
willow tips we're looking for okay well
let this bird go the charming they're
endearing they inhabit places that you
know people see as wastelands and there
are real kind of iconic species for this
area of the world
Sophie's job is to try and fail if the
willow tips it's our most under threat
native bird with numbers down more than
90 percent in the last half a century
the planned hs2 route is a couple of
miles from this reserve near Barnsley
other sites where the Willows it
survives are closer still what are your
worries extinction is a real possibility
willis its needs damp scrubber young
woodland and this is often seen as
wasteland and a very little conservation
value a report out today claims to show
the full environmental impact of the
proposed HS to route it warns 108
ancient woodlands would be affected and
that in all more than 600 wildlife sites
across England's will be damaged
including sites of Special Scientific
Interest and wildlife refuges that are
protected by law as well as the willow
tips the report says many of Britain's
best-loved
and most endangered species will be
threatened creatures like barn owls
hedgehogs the water bold white clawed
crayfish and harvest mice
we've traveled south to Nottingham show
this river will go under where the Leeds
branch of hs2 goes over
the scale of the impact of hs2 is
unprecedented environmental damage and
when you put it into the context of
losing places like this that are really
valuable floodplain meadows wonderful
for a whole range of species and you
think about that in the whole scale of
England then you get a real sense that
government need to be thinking much
bigger and better about what they do for
nature I mean they say they're gonna
plant trees they're gonna have a green
corridor going up alongside hs2 it's not
good enough it's not we want them to be
much more ambitious and we want the
government to stop and rethink this
project and really take the natural
world into account according to HS to
the figures in today's report are
overstated and inaccurate they say the
new line will come with an unprecedented
programme of habitat creation so here
we'll be looking at viaducts and
somewhere in the region of 20 meters
above ground level towering way over the
top of these trees new green spaces
aren't winning over people we met - the
country park on the outskirts of Leeds
the only environmental mitigation that
we're likely to see here is that if a
pond is removed upon this put in
somewhere else and if a 50 60 year old
oak is cut down a tree is planted
somewhere else it needs to be
accountable and relevant to the
communities that it's going through and
it needs to involve them in how it works
and at the moment you've got a scheme
which is created by mandarins in
Whitehall and the communities are seen
as sort of collateral damage right now
HS 2 is under review its supporters say
it'll take cars off the roads and cut
air travel
it's haters say it's a waste of many
billions but for some as we battle a
climate crisis the financial cost is not
the biggest factor well joining me now i
environmental campaigner Chris Packham
and director of the northern powerhouse
partnership Henry Morrison thanks for
coming on that both of you let me start
with you Henry I guess the problem with
hs2 is it's such a long project it's so
drawn-out that issues catch-up
with you like the fact that we're now
much more worried about the planet than
we were when the project started
I think the key answer to that is that
Matt the reality is we are in a climate
crisis and here in the northern
powerhouse we're absolutely committed to
re dealing with those environmental
challenges as well as to rebalance the
economy and if you were to do the
alternative HSTs that's to build more
motorways more roads they generate even
with electric vehicles because of atvs
significantly more carbon and what HST
will do is take cars and lorry off the
roads help us to reduce the amount of
carbon we're emitting from our transport
because people like Chris and other
environmentalists need to recognize that
road projects are going to do a lot more
damage if we have to go to more roads to
get people around the north and the
midlands that hs2 will do and this
scheme has been optimized to an absolute
nth degree to mitigate the environmental
impact okay I think that we need to do
the same on all the major infrastructure
projects in the UK because I think the
hs2 compares very favorably on that
school all right Chris this is this is
getting people out of their cars and out
of them
you know lorries perhaps and onto the
trains which are much better for the
environment your response mmm well
that's the spin that is presented but
unfortunately when you look into the
detail of hs2 and what it will
facilitate it's not that at all it's a
project that won't be carbon neutral for
many decades it's a project which is
designed to enhance airport expansion
and whilst we clearly have to invest in
sustainable green infrastructure and an
improved well network there's no
ambiguity about that at all this is not
a project that's been designed with that
in mind I think that comes back to your
original point this is an old idea with
old technologies which are out of date
our government has declared a climate
and environment emergency and therefore
we think that this project needs to be
rethought we need to rethink hs2 to make
a compatible with our contemporary
targets but one of the reasons why it's
so expensive is precisely apparently
because of the measures they've taken
like digging a tunnel under the
Chilton's to protect them I think one of
the reasons why it's it's so expensive
is that this was designed to be a very
high-speed rail network the speed has
been decreased
the capacity to carry passengers has
been decreased the efficacy of the whole
thing has been decreased whilst the
environmental damage it continues to
escalate now we've heard in your report
about how wildlife will be impacted but
what we've got to think is that projects
of this scale are having a global impact
and Henry would have been watching the
television watching Australia burn
watching Indonesia flood hearing your
weather report at the top of the program
which has told us that we've had the
consistently highest levels of
temperature here in the UK throughout
last year and particularly in December
the climate crisis is coming home and
it's going to bring a crisis to bear on
the UK but we have a responsibility and
an obligation to make sure that this
project is rethought with the
environment critically in mind it's not
just about cost it's about the reality
of tomorrow
let's give Henry chance to as long it
isn't a simple truth nowadays in the
year 2020 that there are simply use that
are more important than industrial
growth and the climate and our planet
are two of them hello yeah we've hello
yeah Henry I think we've lost your audio
sadly we've lost the audio we'll try and
get back to in a second Chris let me
turn to you then while we try and fix
the line I mean are you then saying let
me turn the Crestron are you actively
saying that any kind of industrial
growth that involves infrastructure
projects is going to be off the table in
the near future no not at all I think if
hs2 were offering realistic mitigation
then we would be far more content as
conservationists and environmentalists
but the the mitigation that has been
offered is frankly in contemporary terms
it's it's embarrassing it's absolutely
embarrassing you know there is no point
in thinking that you can offer to plant
7 million saplings let the speaks of
trees this big which will probably the
vast majority of which will never reach
fatuity to replace ancient woodland ok
it's just not on the table Chris I think
we've got Henry back on the line
Henry let me ask your response to that
than just embarrassing your mitigation
it's not embarrassing so I
what I care about agent woodland but
less than one ten-thousandth of the UK's
ancient woodlands is going to be
impacted by hs2 and so I'm afraid the
report today from the Wyatt trust as
we've said in the package is flagrantly
alarmist it collects all the figures
wrong and hs2 limited actually are not
necessarily can be defended on
everything and the project has got more
expensive but the reason for that as was
alluded to in your questions to Chris is
because they've done everything they can
to minimize the impact on the
environment by ripping up this project
and instead France since
expanding existing rail routes many of
those are like the one I'm standing in
front on now border on two of the
wildlife areas and so actually expanding
the rail networks existing routes rather
than building a new one would have a
higher wildlife impact so I think Chris
needs to stop being so alarmist and
understand that we have got a climate
crisis I absolutely want to address that
crisis but we also need to deal with a
huge regional inequalities in this
country which are behind so many of the
challenges that we face in our society
and if we're going to do that whilst we
address the climate crisis we need to
the latest okay we need to build
northern powerhouse rail and that and
both major political parties need to
understand that okay the only way that
we can address both our environmental
and our massive acknowledgement is by
doing it okay gentlemen fellow time and
I apologize for the line issues early on
and Henry Morrison Chris Packham thank
you very much indeed