Beavers are now legally protected in England – the licensing regime explained

Beaver wetlands slow, store and filter water helping to reduce downstream flooding, improve water quality, increase biodiversity, and resilience to drought and adaptation to climate change. Photo credit: Giles Wagstaff, Natural England

By Stephanie Bird-Halton - Director of National Delivery Protection of beavers and why it’s important On 1 October 2022 the legislation changed to protect wild-living beavers in England. Beavers are now listed in Schedule 2 of the Conservation of Habitats …

Paludiculture – the future of farming on peat soils?

Posted by: and , Posted on: - Categories: Biodiversity, Climate change, Landscapes and access, Natural England, Peat

On 27 August 2022, the Government announced a new £5m fund to promote the use of peatlands for sustainable farming [1] – the Paludiculture Exploration Fund (PEF), which seeks to unlock barriers to making commercial paludiculture a reality. In this …

Biodiversity Metric Milestone - Defra consultation on the biodiversity metric

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Biodiversity, Licensing, Natural England, Uncategorized

The Secretary of State has now launched an 8-week consultation on the Biodiversity Metric to be used for the purpose of calculating biodiversity net gain as required under the 2021 Environment Act[1]. The Biodiversity Metric is a key tool that …

Natural England’s response to avian influenza in wild birds – August 2022

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Biodiversity, Marine environment, Natural England, Wildlife
Farne Islands guillemot colony

By Ginny Swaile, Deputy Director Science - Sustainable land and sea use The UK is currently experiencing the largest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza on record with poultry, captive birds and wild birds all affected. A similar situation is …

Springing into Action with Protected Site Strategies for Nature’s Recovery

The Environment Act 2021 sets out the Government’s aim to put nature on the road to recovery for future generations. It has given us some of the tools needed to deliver for our environment, from cleaning up the country’s air, …

Taking an evidence led approach to delivery of the Government’s tree target

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Biodiversity, Climate change, Mapping

The UK Government’s ambition to increase tree and woodland cover in England from 14 to 17%, by more than trebling annual planting rates by 2050, represents a major shift in land use policy. As well as enhancing carbon sequestration, new …

Tony Juniper: Green Paper – an opportunity for an integrated approach to Nature recovery

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Biodiversity, Climate change, Natural England, Wildlife
Rocks with wild flowers growing and trees

During recent years there has been a very important shift in how we approach the task of looking after the natural world in England. Whereas once it was the idea of conservation that shaped ideas and actions, today the notion …

Living England: From Satellite Imagery to a National Scale Habitat Map

By Alexandra Kilcoyne, Amy Woodget, Anne Stefaniak, Miles Clement, Chris Moore, Sophie Potter and Becky Trippier A new map that shows the extent and distribution of habitats in England has been launched on 5 April 2022. This probability map, which …

Chief Scientist Report 2021. Good, better, best: using the best available evidence in nature’s recovery

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Natural England, Science and evidence
children playing in a corn field

Dr Tim Hill, Chief Scientist at Natural England, tells us about the publication of Natural England’s fourth Chief Scientist Report. Our mission within the Chief Scientist Directorate at Natural England, is to ‘…develop evidence and provide scientific advice to drive …