Nature recovery lights greener way forward for Britain
Image credit: Ben Cherry/WWT
In the November 2022 guest blog, Tony Juniper CBE, Chair of Natural England, and Rachel Williams, Area Manager for Wessex celebrated the creation of the new Somerset super National Nature Reserve and highlighted the importance of lowland peat wetlands in the county. They showed how the launch of the new NNR in 2022 coincided with the 70th anniversary of the creation of the first National Nature Reserves in England .
The summer of 2022 marked a major step forward for this country as a global leader in restoring wildlife and tackling climate change – with Somerset at the heart of it all. Natural England and our many partners are proud to have created a vast new National Nature Reserve (NNR) in May 2022 and launched a Nature Recovery Project in the same part of the county.
Somerset Wetlands NNR spans more than 6,140 hectares of precious fen meadows, reedbed and saltmarsh - an area roughly the size of Milton Keynes or Blackpool. It is home to some of our most cherished birds including Skylarks and Avocets, as well as the famous “booming” Bittern now on its way back from the brink of extinction.
A male kingfisher resting on a branch.- Image credit: Chris Pippard/WWT
Not only that, as one of the largest areas of lowland peat in the country it has the potential to lock in over 11 million tonnes of carbon – equivalent to around 2.5 per cent of the UK’s annual emissions – and provides inspiration and leisure opportunities for people who visit.
Natural England are working with the Somerset Peat Partnership and Lowland Agricultural Peat Taskforce to design and implement solutions aimed at conserving and restoring our precious peat soils. This work aims to restore 1000 hectares of degraded peatland by 2025, as well as helping to inform the design of future Environmental Land Management schemes so that they can reward landowners for restoring their peat soils. We are also working with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to explore the potential of blue carbon storage on the Somerset coastline.
It is a great demonstration of the country’s support for tackling the nature and climate change emergencies. Two thirds of the public are deeply concerned about the state of the planet and are keen to see meaningful action being taken.
The good news is that, in our respective roles within Natural England, we can see the effort that is going into nation-wide efforts to stop populations of many of our well-known species heading towards disaster and instead ensure they become more abundant.
Not only are the public right behind this work, the government is leading the way too with new legislation and targets aimed at making sure we avert these wildlife declines by 2030 and protect 30 percent of our land and sea for nature.
The new NNR, declared on 19 May, sits at the heart of our much larger Nature Recovery Project area which was unveiled a week later. To truly recover Nature in this landscape we must look beyond the boundaries of the NNR. The Nature Recovery Project seeks to build on the excellent work being done within the NNR, expanding it across the wider landscape of the Somerset Wetlands. Through the Nature Recovery Project, we are investing just under £0.5 million in 11 projects, which span an area ten times the size of the new NNR. These projects are being delivered by a partnership of six local organisations who work collaboratively on the project, which includes: Somerset Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Environment Agency, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group Southwest and the Hawk and Owl Trust. The projects cover four themes: habitat restoration, strategic landscape scale solutions, landowner engagement and climate change.
Image credit: Sacha Dench/WWT
The key to success is everyone working together – government, business (including farmers), charities, and local communities – to restore nature at a bigger and better scale than we have done before. Somerset Wetlands is known as a “Super NNR” because seven organisations have joined forces, knitting together six existing NNRs plus other land in what is becoming a template for future conservation. They work hand in hand with our Nature Recovery Projects, acting as the core of the Nature Recovery Network, with the project amplifying and expanding on the work being done within the NNR.
The NNR’s launch coincided with the 70th anniversary of the creation of the first National Nature Reserves in England and symbolises a real shift in how we care for nature in this country. While those early years were focused on conserving existing fragments of wildlife and habitat, now we’re restoring nature on a large scale. This year Natural England and lots of our partners celebrated this anniversary through a series of over 100 local events held from May to October, enabling people to discover nature in exciting ways they might not have considered before – from bio-blitzes to history and heritage walks, practical conservation days to yoga and forest bathing! #
For more information about NNRs and the Festival of National Nature Reserves, visit www.NNRfestival.com. More information on National Nature Reserves can be found at National Nature Reserves in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). There is no better time to get out and enjoy Nature.
The images in this guest blog are used with kind permission of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust. WWT (Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust) | WWT
About the authors:
Tony Juniper is Chair of Natural England. Before taking up this role in April 2019 he was Executive Director for Advocacy and Campaigns at WWF-UK, a Fellow with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and President of the Wildlife Trusts. Until January 2018 he was an independent sustainability and environment advisor, including as Special Advisor with The Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit. He speaks and writes widely on conservation and sustainability themes. He’s the author of many books, including the multi-award winning bestseller ‘What has nature ever done for us?’ published in 2013. His latest book, ‘Rainforest‘, was published in April 2018. In 2017 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Rachel Williams is area manager for the Wessex region of Natural England.