Don’t forget the important role of the public sector in looking after nature – Inside track

This post is by Andrew Allen Lead Policy Advocate – Land Use at The Woodland Trust

There is disconnect between the scale of the nature crisis, and to a lesser extent the targets to address it, and the measures being taken to do something about it.

The UK is shockingly now one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. International commitments such as ‘30×30’ (to protect at least 30 per cent of land and sea for nature by 2030) and national objectives, including those set through England’s Environment Act, are potential pathways to reverse the situation and recover and restore our nature.

But, despite these commitments, the overall direction is decline. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra’s) biodiversity indicators for England show most measures of the state of nature flatlining or deteriorating over both the long and short term. The condition of native woodlands exemplifies this. Fewer than ten per cent of them are in good ecological condition, leaving specialist species in long term and seemingly accelerating decline.

This is a chance for strong leadership
A new report, commissioned by the Woodland Trust, contends that the way out of this downward spiral is stronger public sector leadership, across funding, regulation and policy. Crucially, it isn’t calling for the public sector to try and do everything. But, rather, it shows that the big opportunity is for it to more clearly embrace its leadership and co-ordination responsibilities.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than investment in nature. An estimated investment of nearly £6 billion a year for at least the next decade is needed to tackle the nature crisis and meet the country’s targets. But Defra is a small department. Last year its entire budget was under £7 billion and made up less than 1.5 per cent of the government’s total spending.

While Defra cannot hope to fund nature recovery solely from its core budget, it should consider limited land acquisition, focused on parcels of land with the highest conservation value for local, regional and national objectives, and specifically for ecological connectivity, allowing species to migrate between sites and expand their territory and gene pool.

Defra should tread carefully in tapping other sources of revenue. While private sector investment in nature is increasing, the natural world is complex, local and exists on very long timescales. It is not always easy or even meaningful to monetise it.

Nature markets can only be part of the solution
While nature markets are potentially a part of the solution, based on offsetting, they have a fundamental limitation. Ecosystems will not recover if the revenue needed for restoration overly relies on activities that continue to damage them. Robust, properly resourced and dynamic regulation of nature markets that delivers the desired ecological and social outcomes is not a given.

Public spending on nature has fallen by 16 per cent in the past 15 years, creating a skills gap. For example, a major concern around the biodiversity net gain policy applied to new developments is local authorities’ ability to regulate it effectively, as many are cash-strapped and lack in-house ecologists.

The government also needs to resist the temptation to shift costs, using revenue from nature markets to replace existing public spending, rather than driving up the overall size of the funding pot.

Three tests come early next year
Policy makers need clear, ambitious and long term thinking about nature. In England, three tests of their mettle will come in the first half of 2025. The June spending review will set out departmental budgets for most of the period to 2030. We’ll want to see explicit recognition of the size of the nature funding shortfall and overt indications of how it will be filled. The review of the Environmental Improvement Plan will also be completed early in 2025. Eyes will be trained on the delivery pathways for species and habitats targets. Last, the draft Land Use Framework for England will be published for consultation, indicating where nature sits in the government’s pecking order of competing land pressures.

It’s a huge task to put a whole country on the right path to nature recovery. Lots of bodies have a part to play but we can’t achieve a healthy, diverse, resilient natural environment without public sector leadership and all involved pulling in the same direction.

The state must perform a complex mix of delivery, investor, facilitator and regulator roles. Results for nature recovery need a long term plan, akin to the ‘missions’ adopted for other policy priorities, supported by ambitious financing, using the tools of public investment, tax, pollution regulation and market mechanisms. And restoring our natural wealth can’t be done without a dynamic, properly resourced approach to land use and enforcement, one that protects existing species and natural places, helping them to be more resilient and connected, so they can recover and thrive.

Leading from the front: the role of the public sector in nature recovery reports on new research, commissioned by the Woodland Trust, from academics at the Oxford University, UCL and the University of Kent.