Developing a nature recovery network using systematic conservation planning

Robert J Smith,Prue F E Addison,Samantha J Cartwright,Rachel E Sykes,Andrew C Fairbairn,Deborah C Lewis,Claire L Stewart,Gwili E M Gibbon

doi:10.1111/csp2.578

Abstract

AbstractConservation area networks in most countries are fragmented and inadequate. To tackle this in England, government policies are encouraging stakeholders to create local‐level nature recovery networks. Here, we describe work led by a wildlife organization that used the systematic conservation planning approach to identify a nature recovery network for three English counties and select focal areas within it where they will focus their work. The network was based on identifying core zones to maintain current biodiversity and recovery zones for habitat restoration, meeting area‐based targets for 50 priority habitat, landscape, landcover, and ecosystem service types. It included the existing designated sites for conservation, which cover 6.05% of the study site, and identified an additional 11.6% of land as core zones and 18% as recovery zones, reflecting the organization's call for 30% of England to be conserved and connected by 2030. We found that systematic conservation planning worked well in this context, identifying a connected, adequate, representative, and efficient network and producing transparent and repeatable results. The analysis also highlighted the pressing need for government agencies to provide national‐level guidance and datasets for setting targets and including species data in spatial planning, creating a national framework to inform local action.

Highlights

Site-based conservation is one of the most widely used approaches for maintaining and restoring biodiversity and other forms of natural capital
This has led to calls from around the world to expand current conservation area systems, creating ecological networks that will conserve biodiversity in the long-term (Dinerstein et al, 2019)
This is exemplified by England, one of the four devolved nations of the United Kingdom, which has seen a step-change in conservation thinking

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Site-based conservation is one of the most widely used approaches for maintaining and restoring biodiversity and other forms of natural capital. The most widely used approach for designing conservation area systems and other ecological networks is systematic conservation planning (Margules & Pressey, 2000; Sinclair et al, 2018) This identifies sets of priority areas for conservation management based on the concepts of connectivity, adequacy, representativeness, and efficiency. It provided an opportunity to test the relevance of the approach for terrestrial planning in the United Kingdom and, if successful, to provide an example when advocating its adoption by other Wildlife Trusts and more broadly (Crick et al, 2020) To address these three goals, we used the Marxan (Ball et al, 2009) and MinPatch (Smith et al, 2010) spatial prioritization software packages to identify a potential nature recovery network within this highly transformed and fragmented landscape. We produced a list of important conservation features and specified targets for how much of each should be included in the ecological network, identified a set of priority areas for their conservation and restoration and mapped areas within this broader network where BBOWT should focus their resources

| METHODS

| RESULTS

| DISCUSSION

| Future work