Natural environment and biodiversity
The natural environment is the whole of the living world.
Our natural environment underpins our economic prosperity, our health and our wellbeing. Protecting the environment and enhancing biodiversity is therefore one of Defra’s top three priorities, as outlined in the Department’s Business Plan. A key commitment under this priority is the publication of a White Paper on the natural environment by spring 2011.
Natural Capital Committee
The Natural Environment White Paper announced the creation of the Natural Capital Committee, which will report to the Economic Affairs Committee and provide independent expert advice on the state of English natural assets. We are recruiting a chair and five members to take forward the work of this committee.
Defra works to protect all aspects of the natural environment:
We are also helping people to understand, value and protect how the natural environment works as an system to provide ‘ecosystem services’ to society.
The everyday decisions we all take can have a major impact on the natural environment. Defra is working to help businesses make best use of natural resources and consumers to make sustainable choices.
Why do we need to protect the natural environment as a whole system?
We already have ways to make sure individual aspects of our natural environment are protected from direct harm. However, as a society we are putting more and more pressure on our environment, which is damaging the way all the individual bits of it work together in systems.
This is a problem because by damaging these ‘ecosystems’ we are reducing the natural environment’s ability to give us valuable services that underpin our economic, social and personal well-being. These include filtering pollution, providing food, timber and other resources, giving us health and recreational benefits and regulating the flow of water.
Why are natural systems being damaged?
Apart from the things we can sell (e.g. food and timber), the value of our natural systems to society is largely hidden, which means they are often not valued in decision making and are therefore vulnerable to loss and degradation.
What can be done about it?
As a society we will get more from our natural environment if we can see it as a system and value the things it does for us in decisions we make.
Government is researching and promoting ways to help people to do this through an ‘ecosystems approach’. This approach will help us to protect the natural systems that maintain our landscapes and wildlife and support our economic, social and personal well-being.
Latest news
- 23 November 2011 – Ecosystem Markets Task Force launched
- 17 November 2011 – Natural Capital Committee recruiting for chair and members
- 19 Aug 2011 -Biodiversity 2020- A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services. The document sets out our approach to halting the decline in biodiversity over the next decade.
- 2 June – final report of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA) – the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and our continuing economic prosperity. The independent assessment is based around the processes that link human societies and their well being with the environment and emphasises the role of ecosystems in providing services that bring well-being improvements to people.
- 18 May 2011 – Defra has funded research providing operational guidance helping countries to preserve biodiversity in forests under the international REDD+ scheme, reducing deforestation and degradation and promoting conservation of forest environments.
- Update of the Ecosystem Approach Action Plan – find out what government’s been doing to apply an ecosystem approach in its work.
- Value transfer guidance – learn how to make the most of existing valuation evidence by ‘transferring’ it to your own policy situation
Key facts and figures
There are three major studies producing data on ecosystem services and their value to society. For information on these, and recent estimates of the value of the natural environment to society, see the Ecosystems services page under ‘Key facts and figures’.
The current situation and background
Over the last 30 years there have been significant reductions in the levels of environmental pollution and degradation in areas such as air and water quality, with protection for our most precious wildlife sites.
However, there are still many changing pressures on our environment, and the challenges we face are becoming more complex.
A more systematic, strategic approach, that brings together a wider range of players, provides new options to tackle these challenges efficiently and effectively. Defra is therefore promoting an ecosystems approach to policy and decision making. To find out more about this, see the Ecosystems services page under ‘Key facts and figures’.
Key publications and documents
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The Environment in the United Kingdom’s Overseas Territories: UK Government and Civil Society Support
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Biodiversity 2020: A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services
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Working with the grain of nature – A biodiversity strategy for England
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An invitation to shape the Nature of England – Discussion document
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Government response to the Making Space for Nature review
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England Biodiversity Strategy – Climate Change Adaptation Principles
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Conserving Biodiversity – The UK Approach
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United Kingdom Overseas Territories Biodiversity Strategy
- Recovery, growth and the economy – about the links between protecting the environment, enabling economic recovery and promoting a strong, growing economy.
- Natural Environment Narrative (PDF 80 KB) - a summary of the key arguments for protecting the natural environment.
All natural environment and biodiversity publications