Making Space for Nature –

the current thinkingCotswold Conservation Board Annual Forum

2nd March 2012

Sir John Lawton

MAKING SPACE FOR NATURE

•Brief history of report for those less familiar

•The competition to create 12 Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) – where are we currently?

•‘Mind the gap’

•What next?

Making Space for Nature ToRs• Examine evidence on the extent to which England’s collection of wildlife

sites represents a coherent and resilient ecological network capable of adapting to the challenge of climate change and other pressures (looked at 2OC temp. rise)

• Examine the evidence base to assess whether a more inter-connected network would be more effective today and in the future and, if so, how this could be delivered

• Taking account of the ecological, economic and social costs and benefits, make costed and prioritised recommendations

Commissioned by Defra Sept. 2009; reported Sept. 2010

Terrestrial, freshwater and coasts (i.e. not marine)

Looking forward to 2050

Natural England provided the Secretariat

Three tiers of wildlife sites

• Tier 1 sites - primary purpose is nature conservation and which have a high level of protection either due to their statutory status or ownership. SSSIs, SACs, SPAs, Ramsar, NNRs, Local Nature Reserves, and voluntary conservation-sector owned reserves (6.9% of England’s land-area, including fresh-water sites)

• Tier 2 sites - areas designated for their high biodiversity value but which do not receive full statutory protection.Local Wildlife Sites and Ancient Woodland Inventory (6.5%)

• Tier 3 sites - primarily designated for other reasons but wildlife conservation included in statutory purposeAONBs (14.4%) and National Parks (9.1%)

CBD in Nagoya October 2010 aims to protect 17% of terrestrial and freshwater habitats (beware ‘double counting’ e.g. 23.5% of NPs is also SSSI).

N.B. Many other important areas have no designation

So why don’t England’s wildlife sites comprise a coherent and resilient network?• Many of England’s wildlife sites are too small

(77% of SSSIs and 98% of LWS are smaller than 100 ha)

• Losses of certain habitats have been so great that the area remaining is no longer enough to halt additional biodiversity losses without concerted efforts (e.g. 97% sps. rich grasslands 1930-84)

• With the exception of Natura 2000 sites and SSSIs, most of England’s semi-natural habitats important for wildlife are generally insufficiently protected and under-managed

• Many of the natural connections in our countryside have been degraded or lost, leading to isolation of sites

• Too few people have easy access to wildlife.

What do we need to do? - ecological solutions

“MORE, BIGGER, BETTER AND JOINED”

• Improve the quality of current sites by better habitat management (and enhance heterogeneity)

• Increase the size of current wildlife sites• Create new sites• Enhance connections between, or join up, sites, either through physical

corridors, or through ‘stepping stones’• Reduce the pressures on wildlife by improving the wider environment,

including through buffering wildlife sites

Better management of existing sites > Bigger sites > More sites > Enhance connectivity > New corridors

On a large scale all these activities underpin Ecological Restoration Zones (ERZs, which became Nature Improvement Areas or NIAs)

‘Reducing the pressures’ sits outside this hierarchy

ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION ZONES • Making Space put forward 24 recommendations, all of which

are necessary

• Recommendation 3: “Ecological Restoration Zones (ERZs) need to be established within which significant enhancements of ecological networks are achieved, by enhancing existing wildlife sites, improving ecological connections and restoring ecological processes”

Consortia-led, from the bottom up (not imposed), involving local authorities, local communities and landowners, utility companies, voluntary conservation organisations, national agencies etc. etc.

• Recommended national competition to establish 12, now called Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) with £7.5m for 12 initial projects announced in Environment White Paper (June 2011), each from ca. 10,000 to 50,000 ha

COMPETITION FOR NATURE IMPROVEMENT AREASWhere are we and how did we get there?

• Competition announced July 2010, with outline bids by 30th Sept. I Chaired awards panel

• 76 valid bids received• ‘Long’ short list of 20 produced 21st October• Final bids 16th December• 20 reduced to 15, 16th January 2012 (really tough)• Interviews for remaining consortia 7th – 8th February, to select final 12 (even tougher!) • Formal announcement of winners 27th February

Successful consortia start work 1st April 2012; implementation over next 3 years to be carefully monitored

BRIEF SUMMARY OF NATURE OF BIDS

• On average each successful bid will receive £625k – viewed as ‘seed-corn’. In the ‘top 20’ bids:

• Many ways of levering more funds e.g. with Utility Companies, EA flood-control, voluntary sector funds, Biodiversity Offsetting, Visitor Payback Schemes, private landowners, Local Enterprise Partnerships, National Parks, AONBs, etc.

• Range in size from 11,100 to 72,000ha, with mode ca 50,000ha (only part of which ‘restored’,

involving trivial loss of good agricultural land)• A wide range of habitats: wetlands, upland and lowland peat bogs, urban green-spaces, chalk downland, river catchments, heathland, coastal systems, forests• Many kinds of consortia: including farmers, local authorities, utility companies, Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, EA, NE, FC, AONBs, National Parks etc.

Remarkable set of truly inspiring bids

From the long shortlist of 20:

“Never before has there been such an opportunity …[the NIA] has brought together a partnership of unprecedented scale and scope with a shared vision”

“Our decision- and policy-makers understand that prioritising the quality of the environment is a key to future regeneration and prosperity, not a threat”

“…the interest evident at the key partnership meeting, held to develop the project, was overwhelming. The Steering Group had not seen such a range of ideas coming forward and so many groups together”

“It is clear that a number of influential [private land owners] are already keen to be enhancing their land in line with our [NIA] vision

The 12 winners

1. Birmingham and Black Country2. Dark Peak3. Dearne Valley4. Greater Thames Marshes5. Humberhead Levels6. Marlborough Downs7. Meres and Mosses of the Marches8. Morecambe Bay Limestone and

Wetlands9. Nene Valley10. North Devon11. South Downs Way12. Wild Purbeck

But we need to ‘Mind the Gap’ between inspiration and some hard realities

• Most bids only viable in longer term with finance from agri-environment schemes, particularly HLS. Uncertainties over CAP reform therefore a worry (e.g. loss of support for ‘non-farm’ enterprises)• Water Framework Directive a major driver in several bids. Political hostility to Europe could threaten this (?)• Ditto Birds and Habitats Directives

These worries of course equally well apply to many areas important for conservation outside

NIAs

PlanningRecommendations 1 and 2 in Making Space for Nature stressed need for planning authorities to recognise and protect ecological networks (existing sites and restoration zones), and for Government to support them in these aims.

Attack on planning system by Government as a ‘constraint on economic growth’ therefore deeply worrying

And yet some hopeful signs emerging from several NIA bids:• Recognition in several bids, by local authority leaders, Local

Enterprise Partnerships etc, that a healthy environment rich in nature is good for inward investment and good for people• Where development is essential, several bids propose to use Biodiversity Offsetting and the new Community Infra-

structure Levy to fund conservation activities, and to recognise and protect sites in local and sub-

regional planning (localism might actually work!)

Ecosystem Services

Recommendations 4-7 and 17 of Making Space for Nature emphasised the value of ecosystem services for e.g. delivering clean water, flood control, coastal protection, carbon storage and public health

Most of the bids for NIAs ‘got this’ very clearly, and will push recognition of, and payment for, delivery strongly up the political agenda

Also some interesting research projects proposed in a few bids to use habitat restoration and recreation as experiments to explore linkages between biodivesity and ecosystem services

Threats and Opportunites

THREATS

As well as the issues already touched on, government sees NIAs as ‘the answer’ to declining biodiversity and through a whole series of other actions (or failure to act) we go backwards

OPPORTUNITIES

The NIA competition has unleashed some amazing projects by some amazing people. Government cannot argue that nature conservation is a fringe activity which somehow inhibits economic growth. We need to hammer that home at every opportunity

LETS HAVE EVEN MORE, BIGGER, BETTER AND JOINED UP NIAS OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS!!

For more information go to:

• Making Space for Nature

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/biodiversity/documents/201009space-for-nature.pdf

• Government’s response in White Paper, June 2011

• Information on NIAs on Natural

England website:

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk