Plans announced to boost nature across prison grounds, defence land and railways
The aim is to strengthen the UK’s nature recovery by building larger interconnected ecosystems rather than isolated pockets of habitat
Ministers have announced plans to boost nature across Government-owned land, which includes prison grounds, defence training areas and railway lines.
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Rewetting peatland, planting forests or establishing wildlife corridors are among some of the potential actions touted for sites across the estate, which covers more than 577,000 hectares or roughly 4% of England’s land.
These include airfields, barracks, natural nature reserves, prisons and courts, and areas along roads or train lines.
Under the plan published on Friday, ministers hope to join up fragmented, site-by-site nature work into a co-ordinated, “whole estate” approach.
The aim is to strengthen the UK’s nature recovery by building larger interconnected ecosystems rather than isolated pockets of habitat.
The Government also announced plans for pilot “lighthouse” projects, backed by more than £4 million in funding over three years.
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A shortlist is still being drawn up, and the exact number of these projects is yet to be finalised.
But officials said they could range from peatland restoration on shooting ranges to planting forests on prison grounds.
The projects will be selected according to the way they demonstrate effective cross-government action on nature recovery and their scale-up potential for larger areas.
Thriving nature and ecosystems can help offset some of the impacts of climate change, which is largely driven by the burning of fossil fuels.
But they can also help to build infrastructure resilience, for example, restored wetlands helping to reduce damage from floods, green spaces cooling cities and towns, or wildflower meadows supporting pollinators and ultimately food security.
Nature minister Mary Creagh said: “What we’re looking at is how to tell the story of how nature resilience is actually part of our national resilience.
“It safeguards our long-term capabilities.”
Ms Creagh said 500,000 trees have been planted across public prisons in recent years, boosting nature while supporting prisoners’ skills, growth and wellbeing.
She also cited so-called “green bridges” that are built across major roads to reconnect landscapes and allow the safe movement of wildlife.
It comes as the UK experiences increasingly extreme weather events, with flooding, wildfires, heatwaves and storms putting public health, services, transport, housing and infrastructure at risk.
The country is also one of the most nature-depleted in the world, and green groups have warned that the Government is significantly off track to meet its target to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.
With the current estimate at 7%, Ms Creagh said the Government was planning to set out how it will scale up these efforts to 30% by 2030 before Parliament’s summer recess next month.
Getting to the goal is “not just going to be by just flicking a switch and making it happen”, she said.
“What we inherited two years ago when we were elected was an environmental improvement plan with no real budget, no real delivery pathways, and no real way of meeting our international commitment over these first two years.
“What we’ve done is set in place the building blocks of how we’re going to do this.”
For the first time, the Government is applying its new “land-use framework” to its own estate – a landscape-scale blueprint that outlines how to best manage competing pressures on England’s land, such as energy, infrastructure, housing, farming and nature.
As the largest landowner in England, officials said it was uniquely placed to set an example and work with other large landowners on managing land more strategically to meet targets on biodiversity, water quality and woodland cover as well as the “30 by 30” goal.
The new estate plan joins a collective group of strategies published by members of the National Estate for Nature - a coalition of major landowners who together manage a tenth of England’s land, including the National Trust, The Crown Estate, the Church Commissioners, the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and the RSPB.
Asked whether she anticipates any disruption to this direction of travel and the resources being dedicated to nature under a new Labour leader, she said Andy Burnham, Sir Keir Starmer’s most likely successor, recognises the importance of this agenda, having recently launched a local nature recovery strategy in Manchester.
“I heard him talking there about the impacts of flooding on the city centre of Manchester, and how the rain coming off the local peat and the moorlands had just barrelled down into the city centre of Manchester and brought home to him and his city planners and all of the regional authority just how important this agenda is.
“So I’m confident that under our new prime minister, we’re going to see continued focus in this area of action.”