New research says auditing biodiversity is key to the success of the UK’s new conservation schemes

New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) suggests a way to dramatically improve the outcomes of biodiversity conservation efforts globally.

Scientists from the UEA, the RSPB and Natural England suggest that biodiversity audits should be an integral part of the ongoing development of regionally targeted conservation schemes, such as the Local Nature Restoration Strategies (LNRS) established by the UK Environment Act 2021.

Their work has been published in biological conservation. It follows work done with two conservation projects in the East of England – one in North Norfolk and the other in Brix – using this approach to drive conservation locally.

A biodiversity audit sees a small team use every available data source to determine which species are most locally important, and what conservation management they need. On the northern Norfolk coast, for example, the team collected more than 1 million records from 38 different data sources, including local record offices, NGOs and natural historians, to get the final species list of 10,726 species.

This information is used to ascertain which species are of national importance – in order to help land managers do what they can to help as many important species as possible.

The approach, which has also been used elsewhere in the region, in Broads and Fens, reprioritizes management efforts to support greater numbers of important species, while using all available data to see what is in a local area and what land management they need, so that Hundreds of rare species can be targeted simultaneously.

The new LNRS policies, which look to create a plan and set of priorities for each local area in England, currently do not include any provision for identifying species that live in strategy areas, but provide the perfect means of applying this review approach in the interest of biodiversity. nationally.

The research team argues that scrutiny should be integrated into environmental policy globally, specifically for the EU’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy and in formal guidance for the LNRS planned for England.

Lead author of the paper Dr Liam Crowther, from the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences, said, “Despite decades of efforts, conservation has not succeeded in reversing species decline at global or regional levels. And in terms of nature restoration, we stand at a crossroads.” LNRS And their associated delivery mechanisms are highly ambitious and have the potential to reverse decline patterns across many endangered plants and invertebrates.

“But, if they don’t use the data to actually target management to support as many important species as possible, we’ll miss a huge opportunity to restore nature. If we don’t take this approach, we’ll squander an opportunity by replicating broad brush strategies that haven’t worked so far. As the effectiveness of interventions diminishes As they can vary across landscapes, conservation strategies must be locally tailored to meet the ecological needs of their species complexes.”

The paper presents ways to incorporate rapid, low-cost biodiversity audits into local conservation strategies, to ensure they support the broadest complement of priority species—rare and endangered.

Biodiversity Audit uses existing repositories of species data to group priority species that share similar responses to conservation interventions, allowing practitioners to identify and implement regionally improved, evidence-based action plans.

Where it has been implemented previously, such as in East Anglia, this approach has successfully changed conservation practices, increasing the richness and abundance of important species compared to pre-existing management.

In the desert lands of Breckland, this approach found that grazing with additional physical ground disturbance could support nearly six times as many priority invertebrates and plants than the light grazing that was used before.

In the freshwater wetlands of the northern Norfolk coast, the approach revealed that nearly twice as many priority invertebrates and plants could be supported by having more complex, diverse wetlands and wetland characteristics, compared to the current approach where grasslands are closely grazing to support them. wading birds;

These two findings are informing landscape restoration pilots, as the Breckland Farmers Network and Norfolk County Council have been chosen to develop ambitious restoration plans for their areas.

Norfolk County Council’s Director of Protected Landscapes, Dr Katie Owen, oversees the Norfolk Coast Area of ​​Outstanding Beauty (AONB), where one of 22 national landscape restoration pilots will be delivered.

She said, “Bringing a nationally important pilot project and associated funding to the northern Norfolk coast is a great example of using this kind of high-quality biodiversity data to inform decision-making – and more importantly to deliver real and significant change on the ground.”

“By restoring landscapes, we work with farmers and land managers to make room for nature in a working environment. This type of data will be invaluable when looking at changing land use to deliver a range of ecosystem services. We can demonstrate that thriving biodiversity and vital economies do not need Rural needs to be exclusive – in fact they can work together to make our coast an amazing place to live – for humans and the millions of other species we share with.”

Comprehensive biodiversity audits in England typically identify between 10,000 and 14,000 species – and 1,000 to 1,500 priority species – per ecoregion, most of which are plants and invertebrates that have historically been neglected in conservation planning.

The paper brings together evidence to show that the new ‘nature restoration’ policies, while ambitious, are very limited because they do not include any direction on how the LNRS needs to use the wealth of available species data. As such, incorporating biodiversity audits can make an important contribution to the management of both existing semi-natural sites and the design of restoration efforts.