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.
- Farmers and land managers, often working alongside conservation bodies, have played the major role in creating today’s habitats and will play the pivotal role in enhancing what we have and restoring, where possible, what we have lost.
- Nature recovery should be an inclusive process; encouraging and supporting as many land managers who wish to, to move along a spectrum of positions, ranging from highly managed, to ones where more natural processes are restored.
- All lawful decisions about land management are for the land manager (with the help of advisers if needed). Measures suggested in this plan are voluntary and implementation of suggested measures should follow careful site assessment to avoid promoting one interest at the expense of another (See also Core Principle 8: Balancing the benefits)
- There should be a just transition. As financial incentives for farming change, many farmers and land managers may need support to adapt some of their practices. 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.
- In relation to the delivery of ecosystem goods and services, nature enhancement and recovery is the priority. Other natural services will be achieved by pursuing this goal. See Box 2 Natural assets, services and benefits.
- Nature enhancement and recovery will provide adaptation to, and sometimes mitigation of, climate change and build greater resilience in the landscape.
- Support for nature enhancement and recovery should bolster farm incomes and build resilience for the local economy through responsible tourism, High Nature Value farming, responsible game management, high value food production.
- There must be genuine ambition for nature enhancement and 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.
- There will be benefit from the restoration of ecological function in many circumstances, on a scale which makes nature resilient to future changes and shocks. Whilst following this principle one must be mindful of habitats and species which have developed or thrive in a highly modified landscape. See Box 1 Restoring 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.