Beyond the neighbourhood scale, the UK needs to step up its commitment to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030 – and ensure these areas are properly funded, monitored and protected from damaging development. The latest calculations show under 6% of the UK’s land is currently well managed for nature. As the Office for Environmental Protection noted last week, these places can play a “pivotal role” in nature recovery, while also providing major economic and social benefits.
Connecting wild areas is also crucial because nature cannot recover in isolated pockets. Local Nature Recovery Strategies offer a promising way to link wetlands, woodlands and meadows – but planning authorities need clear rules so that growth works with nature, not against it.
Sustainable transport routes offer more opportunities for creating habitat. Well-designed cycling and walking routes can double as green corridors, boosting pollinators and urban biodiversity.
The alternative to this green shift is bleak: worsening floods, more polluted rivers, disappearing wildlife and another decade of missed environmental targets. People want cleaner, greener, healthier places to live. Nature-positive planning is one of the fastest, most effective ways to deliver that, with additional boosts to wellbeing and climate resilience.
The new environmental plan sketches the outline of a more ambitious approach. But unless the government strengthens protections, properly funds regulators and stops projecting nature laws as obstacles to development, UK biodiversity will remain on a downward curve.
The choice is simple: put nature at the heart of decision-making or continue to preside over its decline.
Sienna Somers is a nature campaigner for Friends of the Earth.
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