Proposed outcomes
Our proposed outcomes are:
- habitats for nature will be improved and expanded in Dorset
- a wider range of people will be involved in nature recovery in Dorset
- more people will have access to the health benefits of nature
- nature-based solutions will help respond to environmental issues, like flooding, climate change and water quality
- the local economy will benefit from nature recovery
- Dorset will be a great place to live, work and visit
We will build upon existing nature recovery activities and bring together plans for further work to recover nature in Dorset. This is where we go beyond protecting nature, to actively restoring, enhancing, and connecting nature as well as making nature more resilient for the future.
Who we will work with
We will work with existing partners and make new connections with individuals and organisations to create Dorset’s LNRS. Everyone will have an important role to play in nature recovery in Dorset.
We will work with:
- local environmental experts
- land managers
- planners
- farmers
- communities
- residents
- health professionals
- local businesses
- developers
Our aim is to build and strengthen our LNRS partnership, focusing our collective effort on creating a framework for action to recover nature in Dorset.
Mapping places that are important for wildlife
Ecological networks show the places that are important for wildlife, plus the wider habitats that connect these important sites. Connecting habitats can help wildlife to travel between sites more easily, or buffer them from harm.
Dorset Local Nature Partnership (LNP) and Dorset Environmental Record Centre (DERC) have created maps of the existing ecological network in Dorset. They have also mapped areas which have the greatest chance of becoming more valuable for wildlife in future, this is called the higher potential ecological network.
Areas outside of the existing and higher potential networks are still important for nature, but biodiversity in these places is not currently high enough to be included in the networks.
Spatial mapping is one of the core activities required to deliver the LNRS, so we will be building upon these current maps of Dorset’s Ecological Networks to produce a Local Nature Recovery Map.
Large scale nature recovery activities
Our network of nature-rich sites need to be bigger, better, and more joined up across the country in order to address the nature crisis in England.
At a national scale, a Nature Recovery Network will be formed by joining together the local strategies created by each county in England, helping achieve national environmental objectives and wider societal benefits. We will therefore work with our neighbouring counties as we develop our LNRS.
In Dorset, farmers and land managers are working together in ‘farmer clusters/groups’ to deliver important landscape scale conservation and nature recovery, such as the Martin Down Supercluster. We also have some wider partnerships working on exciting landscape scale nature recovery projects in Dorset, for example Wild Woodbury, Stour Valley Park, Wareham Arc, and the Purbeck Heaths national nature reserve (NNR).
Our LNRS will help connect these landscape scale activities with smaller scale nature recovery activities that are equally important, such as urban greening/green infrastructure projects like BCP Council’s Future Parks.
Local, national and global nature recovery
Nature recovery is needed at global, national, and local scales. Governments across the world, including the UK, have set targets to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030.
Mission 8 of our Natural Environment, Climate and Ecology Strategy focuses on protecting and restoring Dorset’s land, rivers, freshwater and sea habitats.
BCP Council’s Climate and Ecological Emergency Action Plan includes commitments and targets for nature and improving biodiversity.
Defra and Natural England are bringing together partners, legislation, and funding to create the Nature Recovery Network (NRN) to restore and enhance England’s wildlife-rich places.
Governments from across the world signed up to the Kunning-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. Read the COP15: Global biodiversity framework summary briefing.
Several reports have examined biodiversity in the UK. This House of Lords committee report from 2021 explains the importance of biodiversity and how this could be improved in the UK.
Contact us
Get in touch if you’d like to get involved, ask a question or tell us about a nature recovery project or idea you think we should include.