The Wildlife Trusts have published a blueprint for nature recovery, setting out eight proposed pieces of legislation they are urging the UK Government to adopt, warning that warm words about wildlife are meaningless without the legal frameworks to back them up.
The proposals come after the last King’s Speech in 2024 included 40 separate Bills addressing a range of national challenges, without a single one targeting the accelerating loss of wildlife and habitats.
The Wildlife Trusts argue this omission is not just an environmental failure but a threat to national security, pointing to a government assessment published earlier this year that identified biodiversity loss as a growing risk to the UK economy.
The eight proposed Bills are:
- The Ocean Emergency Bill would hand ministers urgent powers to intervene where marine ecosystems are deteriorating fastest, including the ability to fast-track a complete ban on bottom trawling within Marine Protected Areas and establish a joined-up spatial plan for England’s seas.
- The River Restoration Bill would require the removal of man-made barriers that block fish and other species from moving through river networks, while setting targets to increase wildlife habitat along riverbanks to help reduce both pollution and flood risk.
- The Better Land Use Bill would curb environmentally damaging bioenergy production, address the ecological impacts of intensive livestock farming and ensure the government’s Land Use Framework is actually enforced rather than aspirational.
- The Peatland Recovery Bill would protect carbon-rich, wildlife-supporting peatlands by finally banning peat in horticulture — a move the industry has been anticipating since 2022 — and restricting construction on deep peat.
- The Bison and Elk Return Bill would create a legal framework for reintroducing large grazing herbivores to English landscapes, where their natural behaviours can help restore habitats and ecological processes that have been absent for centuries.
- The Nature and Climate-friendly Development Bill would strengthen biodiversity requirements in new developments, encouraging design features that support wildlife such as swift bricks, while expanding Biodiversity Net Gain markets to draw in greater private investment.
- The Access to Nature Bill would enshrine in law the right to a healthy natural environment and place a duty on decision makers to improve public access to green and blue spaces, with a target of ensuring everyone lives within a 15-minute walk of such spaces.
- The Nature Investment Bill would create a regulatory framework for nature markets, setting minimum standards and establishing a dedicated regulator to give investors the confidence to fund nature recovery at scale.
The Wildlife Trusts describe the package as an invitation to government to raise its ambitions to match the scale of the crisis.
Matthew Browne, head of public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, said: ‘You may wonder what bison and elk have to do with the economy and our national security – but they are intricately connected. Natural habitats and wildlife are in dramatic decline at a time when the UK is also suffering from the impacts of climate change and war.
‘Restoring the natural world has hugely diverse benefits: it will help us reduce carbon emissions and our reliance on fertilisers; it will stop pollution from reaching rivers and help prevent flooding; it will help us address the impacts of drought and bring back pollinators; and it will boost green jobs alongside people’s health and wellbeing. Nature’s a necessity for national security – it’s in all our interests to restore it.
‘The UK has just four years left to meet its legally binding target to halt the decline in nature by 2030. Sustained polling shows that action to save cherished wild species and species is very popular – people back saving nature – and the Government needs to act fast to step up nature recovery before it is too late.’
You can read The Wildlife Trusts’ full King’s Speech for Nature here.
Photo: Richard Shucksmith / scotlandbigpicture.com