Norfolk charity calls for better protection of countryside, following report
The Embracing Nature report says droughts are the biggest risk to nature reserves, in Norfolk and beyond
The Norfolk Wildlife Trust is calling for the government to introduce policy to protect the countryside following new research finding drought to be nature reserves’ largest threat.
The Embracing Nature report, published by The Wildlife Trusts, has identified drought to be considered as the biggest risk for the next 30 years.
Other threats included pollution, invasive species and habitat fragmentation.
"We do need to put a lot of resources and effort into looking after them.”
Steve Colin works for Norfolk Wildlife Trust and said: “Our nature reserves are critical. They’re like arc sites. They are where we store a lot of our rare species"
“In order to re-colonise the countryside, we need these nature reserves to be proper functioning ecosystems.
“So we do need to put a lot of resources and effort into looking after them.”
He added: “If we can create more habitat out in the wider countryside and manage the countryside in a more sympathetic manner, that would take policy from government, which critically needs to be joined up across all policies.”
The trust have called on the government to:
o Report on and increase, where necessary, total investment in adaptation for nature and nature-based solutions to at least £3 billion per year up to 2030.
o Continuation of the Nature for Climate fund and strengthening of partnerships that provide nature-based solutions.
o Re-start bespoke adaptation support services for organisations, like charities, who need it, through committing at least £1 million to its ‘arm’s length’ bodies to provide support.
o Movement of responsibility of adaptation policy across UK Government from Defra to the Cabinet Office.
o Immediately unblock or enact delayed policies from the last Government that will improve the resilience of the natural environment and its ability to help people to adapt.
This report in more detail:
The Embracing Nature report has been submitted to the UK Government under its Adaptation Reporting Power, which acts as part of the 2008 UK Climate Change Act to allow the government to invite organisations of strategic national importance to report on their adaptation activities.
The Wildlife Trust are among the UK’s largest landowners with 2,600 nature reserves covering nearly 100,000 hectares.
Almost half of these reserves are highlighted in the report to be in areas of extreme wildfire risk based on the trajectory of 2°C warming by 2100, with three-quarters expected to see summer temperatures rising by an additional 1.5°C in the next 25 years.
"We’ve seen one climate record after another broken over the past 12 months"
Kathryn Brown, director of climate change and evidence at The Wildlife Trust, said: “The Wildlife Trusts are taking action to adapt to climate threats across all our land and marine habitats through helping nature to recover, slowing the flow of rivers, and restoring peatlands.
“This, in turn, supports wildlife and people to be more resilient to drought, wildfire, heatwaves and flooding.
“Nature-based solutions are now nature-based necessities, and we must all embrace the role that nature can play in enabling landscapes to adapt.
“We’ve seen one climate record after another broken over the past 12 months.
“The UK’s natural habitats, and the wildlife that depends on them, are under huge pressure so it’s vital that UK Government raises ambition on adapting to climate change.”
Local work:
Norfolk Wildlife Trust have been working with the Environment Agency to adapt Cley and Salthouse Marshes, rejuvenating reedbeds and moving a section of the ‘New Cut’ flood drain.
This will help to evacuate flood water more effectively and help the marshes maintain freshwater coastal habitats.
"That’s the difficulty with this stuff”
Steve told us the impacts of the drought of 2022: “We had bladderwrack seaweed that made it all the way up to Wroxham bridge, which is really quite far inland.
“Another year, you’re dealing with too much flood water, so that’s the difficulty with this stuff.”
Elsewhere, Manx Wildlife Trust has planted 8,000 trees to create a new temperate rainforest at Creg y Cowin and they’re planning to plant a further 27,000 over the next four years to help create a cool and damp refuge for animals away from extreme temperatures.
What's the Government said on this?
The Government's pledged to halt the decline of species and protect at least 30% of the land and sea by 2030.