A recently published POSTnote – Evidence for nature recovery – summarises the challenges and opportunities for developing the evidence base required to ensure the effectiveness of nature recovery actions.
Overview and summary
Nature recovery means restoring and enhancing ecosystems so that wildlife and people can thrive. It is central to UK environmental policy, including the 25-Year Environment Plan, Local Nature Recovery Strategies, and Biodiversity Net Gain requirements.
Despite these frameworks, England is currently off track to meet most environmental commitments, with ongoing species loss and habitat degradation.
Evidence-Based Decision-Making
- Effective nature recovery relies on combining scientific research, expert knowledge, technical reports, and environmental data.
- Decision-making must address both global (e.g., climate change) and local (e.g., habitat loss) drivers of biodiversity decline, using the best available scientific evidence as required by law.
- Early community engagement, co-design of actions, and adaptive management (monitoring and adjusting actions) are essential for success.
Data and Collaboration Challenges
- Environmental data is fragmented across multiple repositories, with inconsistent standards and limited government investment in data infrastructure.
- Most biodiversity data is collected by skilled volunteers, but there is a lack of universal adoption of quality data standards.
- Collaboration and trust-building, especially through neutral convening bodies, are critical for shared goals and effective local action.
Implementation and Monitoring
- Practitioners often rely on non-statutory guidance, which can be outdated or lack clear evidence.
- There is a need for a centralised body to synthesise and translate evidence into practical guidance.
- Monitoring before and after interventions, including citizen science, is vital but often limited by time, funding, and training constraints.
- New technologies (e.g., AI, remote sensing, eDNA) offer opportunities for more efficient monitoring, but require careful management and human oversight.
Future Opportunities and Policy Options
- Align public and private sector requirements for evidence and data sharing to support investment and reduce duplication.
- Support the adoption of novel monitoring technologies and AI for evidence synthesis.
- Embed long-term monitoring and adaptive management in all nature recovery programmes.
- Provide training and support for practitioners to evaluate and apply evidence.
- Encourage early and ongoing stakeholder engagement through trusted intermediaries.
Conclusion
Nature recovery in England requires robust, evidence-based decision-making, improved data infrastructure, collaboration, and adaptive management. Addressing current gaps and supporting innovation will be key to reversing biodiversity loss and achieving environmental targets.
NBN Trust comment
Further to the POSTnote, we can be sure that nature recovery will not succeed on ambition alone. It needs evidence, data infrastructure, monitoring, and long-term trust between those who collect, manage, and use biodiversity data.
Much of the UK’s biodiversity evidence base depends on skilled volunteers, local environmental records centres, national schemes, researchers, public bodies, and platforms like the NBN Atlas.
The report also highlights a real risk. Environmental data is becoming more fragmented, more complex, and harder to use consistently. New monitoring methods, from eDNA to acoustics and AI-assisted analysis, will only increase that challenge unless we invest in the infrastructure that makes data findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable, and trusted.
If the UK wants evidence-led nature recovery, it must treat biodiversity data infrastructure as part of the delivery system, not as a nice-to-have sitting in the background. That is exactly the role the NBN Trust exists to play.
Will Millard, Data and Analytics Manager from the NBN Trust was able to contribute his expertise to this POSTnote.