Local Nature Recovery Strategies OnePlanet

Local Nature Recovery Strategies

Case Study

Overview

With only half its natural biodiversity intact, the UK is ranked amongst the worst in the world for nature decline. In response to this urgent problem, the UK government has set out the goal of creating a ‘Nature Recovery Network’ of wildlife-rich areas across England.

This network will consist of around 50 Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs), combining a detailed local-scale approach with the pressure of a new statutory requirement (Environment Act, 2021). To undertake this, the national government has appointed County Councils as the ‘Responsible Authorities’ to guide the preparation of each LNRS.

“The aim is that the LNRS should reflect the existing shared objectives and planned actions for nature into one place – as the basis for the planning of future action.” Julie Middleton (Sussex Nature Partnership).

At a county scale there is no existing platform, system, infrastructure or resource in place to capture or report on the LNRS.

Challenges

Delivering a LNRS involves facing the significant challenge of understanding how the numerous existing strategies – typically prepared and ‘owned’ by different sectors – relate to one another. For example; Local Plans, Shoreline Management Plans, Catchment Management Plans, Protected Area Management Plans (e.g. for National Parks and AONBs), flood risk reduction strategies, Water Company Investment Plans and so on.

A critical first step is therefore to collate and analyse all other relevant strategies for the LNRS area and identify priorities and objectives within these for habitat creation and/or enhancement. This allows a targeted strategy to strengthen local nature’s capacity for regeneration and recovery to be developed.

Additionally the existing provision for Responsible Authorities only covers developing the LNRS. It does not support putting in place a system to build-up an accurate dataset, coordinate actions and track and report on progress.

The LNRS itself will bring together key stakeholders to support and inspire land use change, to identify and work through conflicting drivers such as housing and farming, and to begin addressing diverse pressures from climate change, to a crisis of mental health and NHS service provision.

The Responsible Authorities are therefore seeking an approach that can embed these requirements into the LNRS from the outset.

OnePlanet pilot

LNRSs have the potential to initiate a county-wide conversation about what we’ve lost and what needs to be recovered that connects nature, health, housing, climate and planning.

However at a county scale there is no existing platform, system, infrastructure or resource in place to capture or report on the LNRS, so we have been working on one to support the remaining 47 Responsible Authorities to deliver on theirs.

Therefore in a country-wide first, OnePlanet is working with the Responsible Authorities for East and West Sussex to understand and demonstrate how a tech-led systems approach on OnePlanet can support an expert in the cost effective creation and delivery of an ambitious LNRS.

OnePlanet is already being used to:

Help to understand “who is doing what” in relation to nature recovery, nature-based solutions and agreed objectives at county scale.
Identify gaps in existing strategy, to be addressed in the LNRS
Create a framework to support other regions with their LNRS delivery requirements.

The pilot is also testing how OnePlanet can also:

Track progress in delivery of LNRS, including progress reports on specific objectives and key ecological indicators.
Track how the LNRS contributes to other strategies, from local plans to national health and climate policies.
Facilitate stakeholder engagement and automatically congregate KPIs for easy reporting.

Leveraging the OnePlanet technology

The OnePlanet technology automatically allows alignment and collaboration, by:

Strategy mapping into a Common Language

Conversion of existing strategies impacting local nature into OnePlanet’s common language of;

Outcomes – What you want to achieve (Goals, Objectives etc).
Actions – What you are doing, or planning to do, to achieve your Outcomes.
Indicators – What you are measuring, (KPIs and measures of progress).

Simple ‘translation’ of plan

The Lens functionality allows users to view and analyse existing strategies in a against a variety of frameworks, including:

A custom ‘LNRS lens’
An Environment Improvement Plan ‘EIP lens’
Local strategy lenses
Common frameworks including Sustainable Development Goals and One Planet Living Principles.

Opportunity Mapping and implementation

Analysis of the existing strategies (such as Catchment plans, Water Company strategies, National Park strategies, County-wide nature plans) to identify opportunities, overlaps and gaps.

Identify shared goals and use OnePlanet to develop the LNRS to address the identified gaps and support collaboration between stakeholders.

We’re mapping our community on the OnePlanet platform and I can see lots of potential in terms of linking it to national strategies and targets, figuring out our own internal planning, linking to other organisations’ outcomes and seeing where there are synergies - it’s really exciting!

Alistair Whitby, Ouse and Rivers Trust

Benefits and Return on Investment

OnePlanet is the only tool that enables tens or hundreds of strategies to be connected together and managed collaboratively. This enables:

Development of a coherent and impactful LNRS
Efficient resource allocation by minimising duplication of effort and conflicting strategies
Time saving in reporting
Simple tracking of progress and performance across an entire ecosystem of actors.
Connectivity with other relevant plans and national strategies that address nature recovery as well as climate, health and equity.