The following principles have been developed to guide this section and are supplementary to the core principles listed at the beginning of the Management Plan.
- The pivotal role that land managers and farmers will play in nature’s recovery is acknowledged.
- Nature recovery should be an inclusive process; encouraging and supporting as many land managers as possible to move along a spectrum of positions, ranging from highly managed, to ones where more natural processes are restored.
- There should be a just transition. As land management changes, so farmers and land managers need support to change practices, and possibly livelihoods. Those with the least resources (capital, security of tenure) will find it hardest to adjust and will need the most help. Fairness must go hand in hand with collective efforts to restore nature.
- Nature Recovery is the priority. Other natural services will be achieved by pursuing this goal. See Box 2 Natural assets, services and benefits.
- Nature recovery will mitigate climate change and build greater resilience in the landscape against the local effects of climate change.
- Support for nature recovery will build resilience for the local economy through responsible tourism, High Nature Value farming, responsible game management, high value food production and bolster farm incomes.
- There must be genuine ambition for Nature Recovery. We must look beyond just what has been lost in the last 50 or 100 years and towards the future potential for nature in our landscape.
- Rather than relying on existing mechanisms and attitudes to define or constrain our ambition, collective ambition will drive the mechanisms and changes in attitude needed to recover nature.
- Natural processes need to be restored on a scale which makes nature resilient to future changes and shocks. Whilst following this principle one must be mindful of the rarest and most vulnerable habitats and species which have developed or thrive in a highly modified landscape. See Box 1 Restoring natural processes / ecological function.
- Working at a landscape scale, applying the Lawtonian principles of ‘more, bigger, better, more joined up’, with respect to wildlife habitats, will allow for greater species/area relationships and increased population range capacity. (See Working at a landscape scale).
- Landscape change is inevitable in the light of climate change and because of the changes needed to counter the climate and biodiversity crises. These changes can be compatible with conserving and enhancing landscape quality and character.
- Community engagement with nature (including citizen science) is crucial for our ongoing learning, and also a desired outcome of nature recovery.