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 UKBAP was to establish a strategic framework for biodiversity conservation and enhancement in the UK. The Plan recognises that in order to fulfil our global commitments, biodiversity action planning has 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 new framework, England has revised its biodiversity strategy.

We are now moving towards a more intergrated 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 now (2010) conservation through the biodiversity action plan (BAP) process has been largely site based and focused on separate Habitat and Species Action Plans (HAP’s and SAP’s). 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, we have failed to halt the loss of biodiversity in the County. Reversing biodiversity loss now requires us to adopt an integrated landscape-scale approach to delivery, that restores whole ecosystems to secure a healthy natural environment for Gloucestershire.

The Local Biodiversity Partnership has 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.

Visit guiding principles page to find out how the new framework will be delivered.

Strategic Nature Areas

Priority Landscapes

Priority Habitats

Priority Species

New 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 National Ecosysytem 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.

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