Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are a new, England-wide system of spatial strategies that will establish priorities and map proposals for specific actions to drive nature’s recovery and provide wider environmental benefits. The requirement for there to be Local Nature Recovery Strategies, what they are and how they should generally work are established by the Environment Act.
Work is now underway to produce the Oxfordshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy, led by Oxfordshire County Council. The strategy will create a written list and a map to highlight areas of land that are particularly important for biodiversity across the county. This decision-making will be influenced by the priorities collected from people across our county, which will then be linked to potential actions people across Oxfordshire can take in those areas. Wild Oxfordshire chair the Engagement and Communications Working Group for the LNRS.
May 2024: Oxfordshire County Council are now preparing for phase 3 (which will begin in October 2024), where a formal public consultation will be held online for you to see the draft version of the documents and draft map that make up the LNRS, including a written list of priorities created to achieve in the county. During this phase, you can tell OCC what you think about the drafted documents and map before they finalise the strategy for 2025. We will update this page when the consultation is live.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Oxfordshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy through meetings, workshops, and the online survey. We really appreciate your time and effort and we are working hard to analyse the results so they can be included in the next stage of developing the LNRS. The online webinar held on 8th May discussed more detail about our progress. You can watch this below.
The NRS will need to based on sound science and a strong local evidence base. The NRS will be action-focussed, and will need to identify areas where activities can be undertaken to support the ambition of the nature recovery strategy. Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre (TVERC) will lead on this area of work, helping to compile all baseline data, any modelling (e.g., natural capital or climate change), and opportunity maps.
Wild Oxfordshire are an active member of the Data & Evidence Working Group for the LNRS.
We already have some excellent baseline evidence data. Although these will need reviewing in light of the DEFRA guidance, they put Oxfordshire in a great position to start work on the NRS. The baseline evidence base we have includes:
Oxfordshire State of Nature – This report is a comprehensive review of Oxfordshire’s Wildlife and provides vital baseline data. Over 60 species experts and over 40 environmental organisations contributed data sets and volunteer hours into the report, which highlights the natural jewels in Oxfordshire’s crown and considers what is currently being done, and what could be done better in future.
The report was led by Wild Oxfordshire, supported by RSPB, BBOWT, Oxfordshire County Council, CPRE, Environment Agency, Natural England, and Banbury Ornithological Society.
Oxfordshire (draft) Nature Recovery Network – This is map which shows where we need to focus our efforts, and some high-level policies which would help achieve nature’s recovery. It will form the spatial element of the Nature Recovery Strategy (‘local habitat map’ in Defra terminology). This was formally submitted to the OP2050 consultation in August 2019 to ensure that nature is taken into account in development plans in Oxfordshire. This work was delivered by TVERC, Wild Oxfordshire and the Berks Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust.
In addition to the State of Nature and draft Nature Recovery Network, Healthy ecosystems restoration in Oxfordshire (HERO) is working on collating background information which will help create and inform the Strategy. HERO is led by the University of Oxford, with guidance from Wild Oxfordshire, BBOWT and TOE.
The three Protected Landscapes in Oxfordshire (Cotswolds, Chilterns and North Wessex Downs) will all have Nature Recovery Plans, as do the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust and Catchment Partnerships which will need to be considered and engaged with (although they will be based on the same data which the draft Oxfordshire NRN was based on).
Essential to meeting the ambitions of the NRS will be funding to ensure delivery of nature’s recovery on the ground.
Nature is valuable in its own right - and we also rely on it for our own survival. But it is in decline, and we know that there is currently insufficient funding available to support its recovery – the national deficit is estimated to be in the region of £56 billion by 2030, and the Oxfordshire figure is estimated at over £800 million. At the same time, businesses increasingly want and need to fund nature projects, whether through voluntary or mandatory markets. We are working as part of the LNP to develop a delivery framework for natural capital investment in Oxfordshire that has real integrity. This includes developing and supporting a pipeline of projects that can be invested in to enhance ecosystem service provision in the county. Check out their website for more details.
The Environment Bill mandates that the responsibility for producing the LNRS falls to Oxfordshire County Council. We are working very closely with OCC and sit on the Steering Group of the Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership, in addition to several working groups.
