The Wildlife Trusts seek business support for £30 million appeal to kickstart nature’s recovery across 30% of land and sea by 2030

Today The Wildlife Trusts launch 30 by 30, a public appeal to raise £30 million to start putting nature into recovery across at least 30% of land and sea by 2030. The Wildlife Trusts – a federation of 46 grassroots charities – believe that restoring nature is vital for people and for industry. Investing in healthy, functioning ecosystems is essential for tackling climate change and the resilience of the UK economy.

September 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The Wildlife Trusts are uniquely placed to help businesses working towards sustainability goals for responsible consumption and production, life on land, life below the water, sustainable communities, and climate action.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said:
“We’ve set ourselves an ambitious goal – to raise £30 million and kickstart the process of securing at least 30% of land and sea in nature’s recovery by 2030. We will buy land to expand and join-up our nature reserves; we’ll work with others to show how to bring wildlife back to their land, and we’re calling for nature’s recovery through a new package of policy measures including big new ideas like Wildbelt.

“The next ten years must be a time of renewal, of rewilding our lives, of green recovery. We all need nature more than ever and when we succeed in reaching 30 by 30 we’ll have wilder landscapes that store carbon and provide on-your-doorstep nature for people too. Everyone can support and help us to succeed.”

The Wildlife Trusts have a long history of working with businesses to improve places for nature and to inspire and enable employees and customers to experience the joy of being closer to nature. The Wildlife Trusts’ existing partnerships demonstrate the contribution that businesses can make to achieving 30 by 30:

• Severn Trent Water is creating 5,000 hectares of space for nature and working with Wildlife Trust farm advisors across Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire to improve places for wildlife, clean-up agricultural practices and improve water quality.

• During its 13 year partnership with The Wildlife Trusts, Aggregate Industries has managed its landholding to benefit wildlife and has over 4,000 hectares reaching Biodiversity Benchmark standard. Many precious and remarkable nature reserves, such as Ripon City Wetlands in North Yorkshire have been created for local wildlife and for people to enjoy and care for.

• Jordans Cereals enables its oat farmers to farm for nature. Their farmers set aside 10% of their land to be managed for wildlife and together they provide over 4,000 hectares for wildlife. Over the last 5 years each of Jordan’s oat farmers have worked with experts from their local Wildlife Trust to put in place measures to benefit species including birds, bat and pollinators.

• Employees of leading international law firm Hogan Lovells support The Wildlife Trusts through their employee fundraising activities and generous provision of pro-bono legal advice.

• Every year, more than 600 employees from Siemens Plc take part in Wild Work Days – improving natural places in their communities and demonstrating the value of nature on employee wellbeing. Employees return to work feeling happier and healthier; more than 81% reported an improved sense of wellbeing following their time spent with their local Wildlife Trust.

Paul Murphy, CEO, Jordans Cereals says:
“Time is running out to make the scale of change we all need to see to help restore nature and bring back our wildlife. Jordans Cereals has been working with The Wildlife Trusts and with farmers who care passionately about the future of this country and the wildlife it sustains, setting aside over 4,200 hectares of land and enough hedgerows to go four times around the M25 for nature to flourish. We’ve seen first-hand how investing in more nature-friendly farming methods and sustainable food production has reaped remarkable dividends for wildlife. Consumers are demanding positive action on the ground and the most competitive businesses of the future are certain to be those who invest more in a sustainable future.”

Working with The Wildlife Trusts is an opportunity to leave a valuable business legacy, to help mitigate environmental impacts, meet sustainability goals and work towards a greener future for all. Over 2,000 businesses already work with The Wildlife Trusts and together we can achieve our goal of 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.

Funds raised by The Wildlife Trusts’ new 30 by 30 appeal will go towards projects which range from land acquisition to peatland repair and species reintroduction. Examples include:

• Lost fenland to be restored – Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust aims to restore 50 hectares of the county’s lost peat-fenland at Bourne North Fen to become a home for a wide variety of wildlife, linking up important nature reserves, creating a multi-purpose wetland which will store water for agriculture, improve water quality for consumers, and underpin a local eco-tourism economy.

• Repairing peatland to lock-up carbon and help wildlife – Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s pioneering carbon farm at Winmarleigh is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK. Drained for agriculture in the 1970s the carbon farm is part of a project across five European countries to see how peatlands capture carbon. Work has started to rewet fields and plant over 100,000 plugs of sphagnum moss.

• Beaver reintroduction and farmland bird recovery – Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust have plans to reintroduce beavers to the Island. A complex of wetland nature reserves in the Eastern Yar Valley offers an exciting opportunity for this wonderful ecosystem engineer to work its magic. The Trust is also working on returning missing farmland birds such as cirl bunting and chough to the Island.

• Converting low-grade agricultural land into nature areas near homes – Warwickshire Wildlife Trust is changing the way nature reserves are acquired giving highest priority to land with low existing wildlife value where the potential for biodiversity gain is greatest. These areas will be transformed into new species-rich wild areas that will be freely accessible to people and will help capture carbon and prevent flooding.

Find out more about how businesses and industry can work with The Wildlife Trusts’ 30 by 30 appeal at www.wildlifetrusts.org/about-us/partnerships/working-businesses

Join our Big Wild Walk fundraiser 26th October – 1st November! www.wildlifetrusts.org/big-wild-walk

ENDS

Editor’s notes

Species at risk
State of Nature report 2019.

UN Sustainable Development Goals
Sept 2020 marks the fifth anniversary for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark Standard
The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark is designed to complement ISO14001 and tests the design and implementation of a business’s management systems to achieve continual biodiversity enhancement and protection on their landholdings. Over 8,700ha of land on 53 sites have met the standard.

Multiple benefits of restoring nature
Restored habitats will benefit wildlife, climate and people because they capture carbon and bring people all the health benefits known to be associated with contact with the natural world. Flourishing nature is also the foundation for our food security, and declining pollinators threaten our ability to grow food in future.

Current extent of protected land and sea

About 10% of UK land is currently protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Across the UK this divides as follows:
• England has 8% of land protected as SSSI
• Wales has 12% of land protected as SSSI
• Northern Ireland has 8% of land protected as Areas of SSI.
• Scotland has 12.6% of land protected as SSSI

However, even these low percentages of land protected are misleading because they mask the fact that much of this land is known to be in poor condition. For example, in:
• England – 60% of SSSIs (by area) are in unfavourable condition
• Wales – 68% of SSSIs are in unfavourable condition
• Northern Ireland – 39% of SSSI ‘features’ are in unfavourable condition
• Scotland – 35% of SSSI ‘features’ are in unfavourable condition

So, it’s probable that more than half of UK SSSIs – which are meant to represent some of our best sites for wildlife – are in unfavourable condition. Given that SSSIs are very unevenly distributed across the UK, the areas of land legally protected for nature that also happen to be in good condition are extremely patchy.

We use the figures for Sites of Special Scientific Interest as a baseline because they are protected areas which must be managed for the benefit of nature. The official assessment (p.170) of protected areas include figures for places that have landscape designations - National Parks and AONBs – even though these are not managed to benefit wildlife and often have little biodiversity value.

There are other areas such as non-statutory Local Wildlife Sites (LWS) that are good for nature. These sites should receive protection through the planning system but development and lack of management are significant threats. In addition, we don’t know what condition most LWS are in. The most recent report from The Wildlife Trusts on LWS in England shows that we only have information about the condition of 15% of LWS.

Our call for 30% of land to be protected for nature is not a call for 30% of land to be designated a SSSI – instead it is a vision for 30% that’s better protected, better connected and put into recovery for nature.

At sea the picture is different. While large areas appear to be protected, harmful practices are still allowed across designated sites – such as construction, dredging and bottom trawling (fishing) that destroys seabed habitats. That’s why The Wildlife Trusts are calling for Highly Protected Marine Areas where these practices would be banned.

Why putting 30% into recovery is our target
Our campaign takes its lead from The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This is an agreement between countries based on natural and biological resources, with 3 main goals: to protect biodiversity; to use biodiversity without destroying it; and, to share any benefits from genetic diversity equally. The CBD has proposed that at least 30% of the world’s land and seas should be protected in the next decade to prevent the destruction of the planet’s biodiversity, as part of a global framework to protect the Earth’s plant and wildlife.

The 30% threshold of wildlife habitat in a landscape has been worked out by looking at a range of different species and their requirements. At less than 30% cover, habitat patches are too small and isolated, and species richness (the number of species in any one area), abundance and survival rates decline. This is what has led to the UK becoming one of the most nature depleted countries on Earth. Where habitat cover is greater than 30% habitat patches will, on average, be larger and the distance between patches will typically be less, resulting in greater connectivity. This means that if local extinctions do occur, other populations of the same species can move into the area easily.

UK Context
The UK has a human-dominated landscape with a large degree of habitat loss and fragmented natural ecosystems. It is one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet – see the 2019 State of Nature report. In areas where there is little semi-natural habitat left, research shows that ecological sustainability can be achieved through the creation of ecological networks.
The principle is well established and was politically accepted in the 2011 Natural Environment White Paper. This was informed by the Lawton review – Making Space for Nature – which was set up to look at our wildlife sites and whether they are capable of responding and adapting to the growing challenges of climate change and other demands on our land. The Lawton review said England’s collection of wildlife sites are generally too small and too isolated to provide a healthy natural environment; we need more space for nature. It concluded that in order to create a coherent and resilient ecological network, we need more, bigger, better and joined space for nature.

Many Wildlife Trusts have thought about what this might look like and have mapped ecological networks – mostly on land, but some also at sea. This thinking has now developed into a call for a Nature Recovery Network. This spatially-planned approach to working out where best to restore nature requires high quality, proactively-managed data detailing our most precious habitats and species. Funding is needed to implement a new era of ecological data gathering and management.

The Wildlife Trusts published ‘Let nature help – how nature’s recovery is essential for tackling the climate crisis’ earlier in 2020. It outlined key habitats that will store carbon if restored. We need to identify, map and protect these ecosystems, and restore them locally as part of a national Nature Recovery Network. We also need to incentivise farmers and other land managers to improve their land for nature and contribute to this network. At sea, we need effective marine planning, and an ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas.