Recommendation 19

To further improve the state of biodiversity in the Overseas Territories, we recommend that gaps in their protection be rectified. Namely, we recommend that: a) Ministers assure and set out the long-term funding plan for the Blue Belt Programme. In response to this report the Government should set out the programme’s long- term timetable, budget, and status following the Government’s 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. b) Ministers review the environmental funding gap implications for the Overseas Territories following the UK leaving the EU. In response to this report Ministers should set out how the UK could fund landscape scale environmental projects with the potential for transformative biodiversity restoration. c) In the Government’s response to this report, Ministers should evaluate the feasibility of an environmental research portal for Overseas Territories. d) Ministers should consider opportunities to use increasing global aerial surveillance capabilities from high altitude or space to monitor the Blue Belt Programme. (Paragraph 75) International development and biodiversity