Safeguarding small and isolated nature reserves has not been enough to stop wildlife decline. It is now widely understood that only landscape-scale changes which enhance and expand core areas of wildlife-rich habitat, and which reinstate natural processes across large areas of land, will deliver a reversal in the decline in wildlife diversity and abundance.
Sir John Lawton’s report from 2010 ‘Making Space for Nature’ [13] concluded that ‘England’s collection of wildlife sites, diverse as it is, does not comprise a coherent and resilient ecological network even today, let alone one that is capable of coping with the challenge of climate change and other pressures’.
Natural England has recommended a hierarchy of actions for Nature Recovery [13] following the principles laid out in the Lawton report:
- improve core wildlife sites
- increase the size of core sites
- increase the number of core sites
- improve the ‘permeability’ of the surrounding landscape for the movement of wildlife
- create corridors of connecting habitat
In response to Lawton’s report Natural England has produced a series of Habitat Network maps to guide the development of local work to implement these actions [24].