Written by Ellie Strike – Head of Regulatory Programmes, OEP
Over the next couple of months, we’re inviting Responsible Authorities1 and other stakeholders involved in Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) to help inform our work looking at how these new measures will contribute to nature’s recovery.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies and the OEP
For those of you familiar with the OEP, you will know that we were created by the Environment Act 2021. The Act contains cross-cutting measures, such as environmental governance, but also more specific provisions, such as those for nature and biodiversity. And amongst these is the requirement to prepare and publish LNRS.
LNRS are statutory local plans for nature in England. A total of 48 LNRS will cover the whole country, providing for the first time, spatial plans that will map not only existing areas of importance for nature but also opportunities to recover or enhance biodiversity.
The Environmental Improvement Plan states that LNRS will be an important enabling mechanism for achieving the apex goal of thriving plants and wildlife. It will also help deliver the Environment Act targets of halting the decline in species abundance by 2030 and increasing species abundance by at least 10% above 2022 levels by 2042.
Here at the OEP, we have a duty to scrutinise the government’s progress with its EIP. LNRS, along with the land-use framework and marine spatial prioritisation, are expected to play an important role in implementing key actions on land, freshwater and at sea.
Given our role in the EIP, our duty to monitor the implementation of environmental law, and our current organisational priority of improving nature, LNRS was an obvious choice for our next project.
What are we doing?
We want to understand the extent to which LNRS will contribute to related goals and targets for improving nature.
To do this, we are developing an assessment framework which we will use to assess LNRS’ ‘ambition’, ‘coherence’ and ‘delivery focus’. We also want to gather evidence on the barriers and enablers to developing LNRS.
We are not checking for legal compliance. We want to gather evidence from those closest to this work to understand what is working well and what is not working so well and why. Sharing this work with us and others will enable continuous improvement throughout the LNRS development process, maximising their potential for enabling nature’s recovery.
Progress so far
On 28 August, we held the first of three workshops with Responsible Authorities. Representatives from 15 Responsible Authorities joined us to share their experiences so far in developing their LNRS. These discussions will help us better understand some of the practical challenges and opportunities that exist.
We heard about some positive experiences in local stakeholder engagement, and about challenges concerning data, timescales and the availability of guidance.
We also presented some of our initial thoughts on how we might assess the ambition, coherence and delivery-focus of LNRS. At this workshop we focused specifically on how we might consider ambition and what criteria we should use.
We heard from attendees that meeting the existing requirements for LNRS is challenging. Given the timing and resource constraints, ambition over and above the requirements might not be something that all LNRS can achieve.
We are grateful to those who attended this workshop. We got a huge amount of information and are now working through it to inform the development of our assessment criteria. The workshop attendees told us they found the workshop helpful.
How can you get involved?
We are continuing to engage with Responsible Authorities and other key LNRS stakeholders to inform the development of our assessment framework. There are several ways you can get involved.
OEP LNRS Webinar
On 19 September 2024 we will be hosting a webinar for strategic stakeholders in the LNRS process to hear more about our work.
If you would like to attend this webinar, please get in touch with us at: LNRS@theoep.org.uk
Responsible Authority Workshops
On 25 September 2024 and 23 October 2024, we are running further workshop sessions with Responsible Authorities. These will be to gather more evidence on the barriers and enablers to developing effective LNRS, and to seek views on how we assess the coherence and delivery-focus of LNRS.
If you are a Responsible Authority and you would like to get involved in our workshops, please get in touch with us at: LNRS@theoep.org.uk
Next steps
Analysis and reporting
Assessment of 12 selected LNRS will take place during Autumn / Winter of 2024. During this time, we will also analyse the information we have received about barriers and enablers.
We aim to publish our findings and recommendations in a report that is laid before Parliament in Spring 2025.
If you have any questions or comments in relation to this blog, please contact us at: LNRS@theoep.org.uk
Footnotes:
- Responsible Authorities were appointed by the Defra Secretary of State and are responsible for leading the preparation of each strategy. Further information can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-nature-recovery-strategies-areas-and-responsible-authorities
