Solent Nature Recovery

Solent Forum is working with partners including Responsible Authorities in Hampshire, Isle of Wight and West Sussex to help scope the strategic direction of Solent marine and coastal nature recovery, and how this can work alongside Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) being prepared by the responsible authorities (local authorities) and others in the Solent.

LNRS are spatial strategies that establish the priorities and map proposals for specific actions, which will then lead to nature recovery and wider environmental benefits. The Strategies are tools to help us work together effectively and enable collective effort to focus where there’s most benefit. Please use these links for full details about Local Nature Recovery Strategies and the Nature Recovery Network they will help form.

LNRS cover habitats to mean low water, and this scoping work will look at the marine and intertidal space to compliment them. The work will involve preparing a list of potential data layers, drivers, and partners.  Reports have been made to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Nature Partnership, and it is anticipated that Solent Marine Recovery will be taken forward in conjunction with the Solent Seascape Project.

• Solent Nature Recovery Scoping paper

The Solent to Sussex Bay Habitat Restoration Inventory

The Solent to Sussex Bay Habitat Restoration Inventory is the first publicly accessible inventory of seascape restoration activities covering the Solent to Sussex Bay region. It provides interested stakeholders with the key information needed to engage with all restoration practitioners and researchers in the Solent to Sussex Bay area.

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Local Nature Recovery Strategies

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are a flagship measure in the Environment Act, 2021. They will consist of:

• A Statement of Biodiversity Priorities, which reflect stakeholder priorities for environmental outcomes, and the actions that need to be undertaken to achieve these outcomes.
• A Local Habitat Map, which will identify the existing distribution of habitats and the location of areas already important for biodiversity, overlaid by locations considered suitable for delivering the outcomes and actions identified by stakeholders.

The strategies will be a statutory requirement and Responsible Authorities (usually local authorities) will be required to develop them and report on progress every five years.

Cornwall, Buckinghamshire, Greater Manchester, Northumberland and Cumbria local authorities were selected by the government in August 2020 to receive a share of £1 million of funding to set up ‘Local Nature Recovery Strategies’ (LNRS) pilot studies.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Nature Partnership

The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Nature Partnership (LNP) was established in 2012 and is one of 48 strategic local nature partnerships formed in England following publication of the 2011 Natural Environment White Paper. LNPs operate at the county scale.

Its main focus is to:

• drive a nature recovery network and green infrastructure out from protected landscapes and out from large urban areas;
• tackle climate change, especially in terms of the contribution from biodiversity and land management;
• improve health & wellbeing through accessible natural greenspace;
• support the changing rural economy – helping land managers and rural businesses to become more sustainable and remain profitable by doing three above

The Hampshire Biodiversity Information Centre (HBIC) was contracted by Natural England in 2015 to produce a detailed Ecological Network Map for Hampshire on behalf of the Local Nature Partnership (LNP). A draft was produced in 2016 and has since been road tested and updated to reflect changes in site designations and habitat mapping over the intervening period. The map represents the hierarchy of international, national and locally designated sites of importance for biodiversity, plus other priority habitats and, importantly, areas identified for habitat restoration or creation.

South East Nature Partnerships

In 2021, a new network of nature partnerships in the South East was established.  The South East Nature Partnership brings together Sussex Nature Partnership, Kent Nature Partnership, Surrey Nature Partnership, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Nature Partnership. Through this network, SxNP collaborates across the region on common priorities. This partnership meets quarterly and is chaired by the Kent Nature Partnership. 

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Resources

The Wildlife Trusts have published a report that sets out what they believe a Nature Recovery Network should achieve, see: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/nature-recovery-network.

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