We are facing two inextricably linked crises: the climate emergency and the massive, ongoing loss of nature. We cannot solve one without addressing the other. The climate emergency is a leading driver of biodiversity declines, while the loss of wildlife and habitats also leaves us ill-equipped to reduce our emissions and adapt to change. By joining up existing habitats and creating new ones, we can reverse these declines and empower nature to be our greatest ally in the fight against climate change.
The power of trees and woodlands to pull carbon dioxide from the air is well known; but they are only part of the picture. Wetlands, grasslands, peatlands, saltmarshes, farmland, seagrass beds, life in our seas and soils are all hugely important for absorbing carbon. These vital habitats and ecosystems also provide the natural richness we all depend upon, by cleaning our air and water, reducing flooding and coastal erosion, supporting pollinators, making us happier and healthier, and providing the nutrients for growing our food – all of which makes us more resilient in the face of the climate emergency.
But nature in the UK is heavily depleted. The 2019 State of Nature report found 41% of species have declined since 1970 and one in seven are at risk of extinction, with the loss, degradation and fragmentation of habitats a leading cause of this decline. These losses disrupt the natural systems which regulate our climate and mean wildlife is far less able to move, reproduce and adapt.
For instance, the UK’s peatlands contain 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon, but 80% of them are damaged and may be releasing up to 23 million tonnes of CO2 a year, more than is absorbed by our woodlands. Wetlands can store a whopping 1.9 tonnes of carbon per acre annually, but the UK continues to lose these to development and farming, and they have undergone massive historic decline – one million hectares were drained in the 1970s alone.
Saltmarshes have truly heroic powers to absorb carbon at a rate faster than peatlands or woodlands and store it for thousands of years; but we are losing around 100 hectares each year to development and rising sea levels, releasing stored carbon. The conversion of grasslands to arable food production also releases soil carbon – between 1990 and 2006, an estimated 14 million tons of CO2 were released by grasslands being put to the plough.
Clearly, recovering nature should be our priority in fighting climate change. To do this, we can’t simply stick to conserving and maintaining existing protected sites. This approach has evidently failed. We need a coordinated, effective response to the nature crisis that restores and reconnects habitats – a Nature Recovery Network.
A Nature Recovery Network on land will involve mapping our landscape to identify important areas for nature and where habitats and wildlife corridors can be created to join these up. This will provide a national framework, helping join up separate efforts to conserve and recover nature so that they make a meaningful contribution to nature’s recovery at a national scale. It will also help identify and protect natural carbon stores – 66% of carbon in nature-rich areas lies outside protected sites.
It will ensure greater value for public and private investment, allowing net gain payments and the new Environmental Land Management scheme to be deployed in a way which will more effectively create and reconnect natural places. It will also help coordinate planning so that development doesn’t help destroy our natural life-support system. And by mapping where habitat can be created and joined up, it will help us meet crucial biodiversity targets and provide a clear yardstick by which to measure our success.
On sea, we need an ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) that are properly managed to recover life in our waters. Globally, oceans absorb up to 35% of all CO2 emissions. But in the UK, our marine environment is in crisis and ecosystems which store huge amounts of carbon are threatened. One example is seagrass beds, which can sequester up to 2.1 tonnes of carbon per hectare annually; UK seagrass beds have declined by nearly 50% in the past 35 years.
By properly protecting and creating more habitat on land and at sea, we can increase the potential for healthy ecosystems to lock up carbon. Reconnecting and restoring nature will also ensure that the natural systems which sustain us are more resilient and better able to adapt to climate change.
The possibilities are enormous: globally, natural solutions to climate change could provide an estimated 37% of cost effective CO2 mitigation needed to limit warming to 2°C. By comparison, ocean-based renewable energy could provide up to 12% of mitigation. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth – a shocking fact, but clearly there is not only a great need, but huge potential for restoration through a Nature Recovery Network.
Will Parsons, The Wildlife Trusts. The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Bright Blue.