Nature ‘needs £3 billion climate support’

Drought is now the biggest threat to important sites for nature across the UK as the climate changes, a report from The Wildlife Trusts has warned.

The report examining the dangers posed to nature reserves cared for by the trusts also points to pollution, invasive species and habitat fragmentation as key current risks to wildlife in woods, peatlands, wetlands, coastal areas and grasslands.

Over the next 30 years, Wildlife Trusts experts believe drought will continue to pose the biggest threat to their reserves, with other climate-driven risks including heatwaves and wildfires also causes for high concern.

Dry

The network of local wildlife charities – which together are one of the UK’s biggest landowners with 2,600 reserves totalling nearly 100,000 hectares – say they are taking steps to adapt to climate threats across habitats they look after.

But they are urging the UK Government to commit at least £3 billion a year to invest in helping nature adapt and for nature-based solutions to climate change such as restoring the UK’s temperate rainforest and natural flood defences – in addition to funding for the nature-friendly farming programme.

They also want to see the new government unblock policies that were delayed under the previous administration, including bringing in a ban on peat use in horticulture, licences for wild beaver releases, and boosting regulation and enforcement for pollution into rivers, to improve nature’s resilience.

And the government is being urged to maintain the sandeel fishing ban in the North Sea, which is under pressure from the EU, as a key piece of resilience for marine wildlife which depend on the fish.

The report comes as the world sees record-breaking heat, with temperatures 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for a full year for the first time, and with the UK suffering from extreme weather swings, from a very dry 2022 with temperatures topping 40C to an extremely wet winter in 2023/24.

Hazards

The Wildlife Trusts surveyed conservationists working across the network to find out about the threats nature reserves are facing, and they identified drought as the leading current threat to wildlife, with 90 per cent of those asked warning it was having negative impacts on nature now.

That puts it ahead of other threats, such as pollution, which was named by 80 per cent of the conservationists, invasive species (73 per cent) and habitat fragmentation (62 per cent).

When it comes to the risk facing reserves over the next 30 years, drought was still considered to be the leading threat, named by 91 per cent of those asked, while climate-driven heatwaves were flagged up by 89 per cent and wildfire by 70 per cent.

The Wildlife Trusts warned that flooding, rather than drought, is often at the top of the list of hazards that politicians and governments use to discuss climate impacts.

Drought planning needs more urgent attention alongside the other key hazards associated with climate change, the report urges.