Introduction

The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP) was launched in 1994 as a means of meeting the UK's obligations under the Biodiversity Convention (signed by the UK and over a hundred other countries at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992) to "develop national strategies, plans or programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity". The aim of the UK BAP was to establish a strategic framework for biodiversity conservation and enhancement in the UK. The Plan recognised that in order to fulfil our global commitments, biodiversity action planning had to be strategic and be driven locally as well as nationally.

In order to focus conservation effort on the habitat and species of most concern the UK Biodiversity Steering Group recognised the need to identify a set of habitats and species that were 'priorities' for nature conservation.

At the Nagoya UN Biodiversity Summit (October 2010), a new 'Strategic Plan' to drive action on biodiversity through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was agreed. This provides a new global vision and direction for biodiversity policy.

In line with global commitments made at Nagoya, the European Commission adopted a new strategy (May 2011), 'to halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and restoring them in so far feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss'.

To take account of this, the Environment Departments of all four UK governments agreed a framework of priorities for UK level work in July 2012. The previous work carried out under the former UK BAP is now focussed in the four countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England there is a revised biodiversity strategy called 'Biodiversity 2020'.

We are now moving towards a more integrated landscape-scale approach to biodiversity conservation with the aim of recovering habitats and species as well as the ecosystem services that they underpin.

A Local Delivery Plan for Biodiversity:

a new framework for delivering Priority Habitats and Species in Gloucestershire

Why the need for a new framework?

Until 2010 conservation through the Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) process has been largely site based and focused on separate Habitat and Species Action Plans (HAPs and SAPs). The need to maintain, restore and create habitats was well recognised within individual plans, but there was no focused or truly spatial approach. Despite some progress in implementing single action plans the loss of biodiversity in the County was not halted. The Gloucestershire HAPs and SAPs are now for information only and instead the English List of Priority Habitats and species should be used. Reversing biodiversity loss now requires us to focus on an integrated landscape-scale approach to delivery, that restores whole ecosystems to secure a healthy natural environment for Gloucestershire.

The Local Biodiversity Partnership developed a 50 year vision for delivering a new County framework for biodiversity conservation through a focus on Strategic Nature Areas (SNAs) which go to make up the Gloucestershire Nature Map. SNAs provide a targeted approach to conserving biodiversity at a landscape-scale and also help us to adapt to climate change. The SNAs identify where the greatest opportunities for habitat restoration and creation lie, enabling the efficient delivery of resources to where they will have the greatest positive conservation impact.

See the Guiding Principles page to find out how the new framework can be delivered.

Strategic Nature Areas

Priority Landscapes

Priority Habitats

Priority Species

Natural Environment White Paper

The Natural Choice, published in June 2011, is the first White Paper on the natural environment for 20 years. It is directly linked to ground breaking research in the UK Ecosystem Assessment report (June 2011) that shows the strong ecomomic arguments for safeguarding and enhancing our natural environment.

The White Paper also acts on the recommendations from Making Space for Nature (September 2010). This independant review, chaired by Professor Sir John Lawton, concluded that England's collection of wildlife sites (both legally protected areas and others) does not currently represent a coherent and resilient ecological network that is capable of responding to the challenges of climate change and other pressures.

For more see Defra's website

Ecological Networks?
An ecological network is a network of high quality sites, protected by buffer zones, and connected by wildlife corridors and smaller, but still wildlife rich, 'stepping stone' sites. The essence of what needs to be done to establish a more coherent and resilent network can be summarised in four words: Better - improve the quality of priority habitat (both within and outside protected sites), through appropriate habitat management. Bigger - increase the size of existing priority habitat. More - create new areas of priority habitat. Joined - enhance ecological connections between, or join up, existing areas of priority habitat to enable wildlife to move around the landscape.

England's Biodiversity Strategy
Biodiversity 2020 - published in August 2011, sets out the government's approach to halting the decline in biodiversity over the next decade.

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