EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction and Overview

The UK Biodiversity Action Plan established a planned approach with clear biological targets for 391 species and 45 habitats. Monitoring and reporting are crucial to assess progress, evaluate priorities and address emerging issues. At the end of 2002 the Lead Partners of the action plans and Local Biodiversity Action Plan officers reported on their progress.

The 2002 reporting round was web-based and the first step towards fully web-based interactive reporting, supported by the Biodiversity Action Reporting System (BARS). This new approach proved a success. A high response rate was achieved with reports received for all 45 Habitat Action Plans, 364 (93%) Species Action Plans and 123 (76%) Local Biodiversity Action Plans.

Species and Habitat Progress

Knowledge

Two thirds (65%) of the 389 Lead Partners who answered this question believe that there is enough knowledge to enable at least some progress towards achieving the plan targets. However there is also a clear need for more research in many cases (15%).

Species and Habitat Trends

An important measure of our success in conserving the UK’s biodiversity is whether or not the status of UK BAP priority species and habitats is improving. The 2002 reporting results show that:

• Six habitats (13%) and 25 species (6%) are increasing.
• Six habitats (13%) and 76 species (20%) are stable.
• Seventeen habitats (38%) are in decline but the decline is slowing for 14 habitats (31%).
• Ninety-seven species (25%) are declining but this is slowing for 30 species (8%).
• One species, the starry breck lichen, appears to have been lost since the UK BAP was published.
• UK trend was either not reported or was unknown for 13 habitats (29%) and 110 species (28%), an improvement from the 1999 figures of 55% and 71% respectively.

There have been notable successes…

Native pine woodlands, cereal field margins, the bittern, ladybird spider and field cricket are amongst those UK BAP priority species and habitats showing increases in extent or numbers, reflecting the success of hard work on the ground and effectively targeted incentive schemes.

But there is still much to do…..

Limestone pavements, maritime cliffs and slopes, the dormouse, natterjack toad, sunset cup coral and silver-studded blue butterfly, among others, continue to decline.

Comparison with the 1999 reporting round

The 2002 reporting round showed that more information is available compared to 1999, enabling clearer judgements to be made about trends, including more detailed assessments about the rates of decline. Five species (including song thrush, narrow headed ant and the fiery clearwing moth) were showing a more positive trend than in 1999. However, 13 are now showing a worse trend than in 1999 (including the Cotswold pennycress, the starfruit and the Twaite and Allis shads).

Species and Habitat Targets

By 2002, 72% of plans (71% of habitats and 72% of species) were making progress on at least one target. This is a significant increase on the 54% reporting progress in 1999.

Are we on schedule?

Fourteen Species Action Plan and seven Habitat Action Plan targets were due to be achieved by 2002. Of these, eight of the species targets (including targets for bittern, corncrake, song thrush and sand lizard) had been achieved or exceeded and almost two thirds of the remainder have made at least some progress.

In some instances a large number of targets are behind schedule. Although there may be valid reasons for this, it is important that these targets are achieved in the future. And for both species and habitats, maintenance targets are generally showing better progress than enhancement targets.

Links between Lead Partners and Local Biodiversity Action Plans

Work carried out under Local Biodiversity Action Plans is an important complement to the work carried out or co-ordinated by Lead Partners.

257 (66%) UK BAP priority species and 41 (91%) UK BAP priority habitats are included in at least one Local Biodiversity Action Plan. Local Biodiversity Partnerships have also prepared action plans for a large number of other species and habitats to reflect their important role in the conservation of biodiversity of local significance and resonance.

Lead Partners were asked to assess the importance of Local Biodiversity Action Plans in achieving priority targets. A huge majority (83%) of Lead Partners felt that Local Biodiversity Action Plans were at least slightly important in achieving plan targets. The 64 Lead Partners (17%) that considered Local Biodiversity Action Plans unimportant in attaining targets, were in most cases leads for marine species or species with a highly restricted range.

Though over 80% of Lead Partners believed Local Biodiversity Action Plans are important to some extent in achieving targets, 60% had made little or no contact. Further work is clearly needed to improve this, however a valuable outcome of this reporting round has already been the exchange of relevant information and knowledge between Lead Partners and Local Biodiversity Action Plans.

Action Plan Successes

In addition to achieving wildlife gain, significant progress has been made in engaging communities and in raising the profile of biodiversity conservation in society as a whole with over 1500 organisations, from a wide range of sectors, involved in implementing local and UK BAPs. Reflecting this, the most common reported success for Local Biodiversity Action Plans was in communication and raising awareness.

In addition to the communication work and partnership building successes of Local Biodiversity Action Plans, they are clearly making important contributions to the delivery of targets for UK BAP priority habitats and species. For habitats, most successes were recorded in the Habitat creation, Management and Restoration categories while for species the successes were dominated by Surveys.

Similarly, Lead Partners recorded nearly half of their successes (44%) in the Research, Survey and Information category.

Obstacles to Progress

Factors

Lead Partners reassessed the factors causing loss or decline of their species or habitats and ranked them according to their significance, giving a good indication of the key factors impacting on biodiversity.

Habitat loss and degradation (61%) emerged as the issue that affects most UK BAP priority species and habitats with pollution a distant second (18%). Looking in more detail at the underlying causes of habitat loss and degradation it is clear that agriculture is most important, followed by changing management practice and infrastructure developments.

Land and freshwater pollution factors, particularly nutrient enrichment from agriculture and agro-chemical usage, contribute 11% of the total and were ranked higher than atmospheric pollution (5%) which includes impacts associated with global warming.

Constraints

Lead Partners identified Research and Survey (40%), Management (23%), and Funding (19%) as the main constraints to achieving plan targets. Local Biodiversity Action Plan officers identified Funding (31%), Research (19%) and Action Plan Progress (17%) as the main obstacles to overall progress with their plans. The Biodiversity Research Advisory Group and the Biodiversity Reporting and Information Group will need to take account of the research and survey findings in their work programmes.

Sustainable Development

Ensuring biodiversity is integral to the delivery of sustainable development is essential to our future success in reversing loss or decline of UK species and habitats and the UK BAP has a record of successes in this regard. However, Lead Partners reported mixed fortunes for the conservation trends of priority habitats and species associated with the agriculture, water, woodland and coastal and marine sectors.

For example, Agricultural-related land use activities impacted on 37 (61%) habitats and 237 (82%) species action plans having influence on more species than any other sector. However, 71% of the UK BAP priority habitats are influenced by coastal factors.

Habitat loss is a major factor causing species and habitat loss or decline and spans all sectors through inappropriate grassland management and cropping, loss of water habitats, felling of trees, and coastal defence mechanisms.

Pollution is important too, particularly in the agriculture and water sectors where nutrient enrichment, agro-chemicals and polluted water run-off are major impacts.

Because of the associations of large numbers of species and habitats with a single sector, dealing with some of these major factors or constraints will achieve significant benefits for the conservation of biodiversity, not just the UK BAP priority species and habitats.

2002 Reporting System

The final section links to the forms that were completed by the Lead Partners and the Local Biodiversity Action Plan officers during the 2002 reporting round. To view the completed reports, choose Lead Partners or Local Biodiversity Action Plan and then select either the species or habitat of interest or the Local Biodiversity Action Plan from the pull down menus. Then login as guest to view the data.