As world leaders gather once again for COP negotiations focused on reducing atmospheric CO2, it is essential not to lose sight of another formidable global challenge - reversing global declines in nature. Just as the imperative to reducing atmospheric CO2 is now widely understood, the reasons for reversing nature’s decline are equally well-established: nature’s “natural capital” underpins critical ecosystem services essential for societal wellbeing, economic resilience and human health. Highly relevant to the current COP negotiations, some of our most important natural capital assets, also provide climate resilience.
Like the COPs for climate, however, whilst we are reasonably good as a global community at recognising the nature-loss issue, we are less successful at agreeing and implementing actions to deal with it. But at the UN Biodiversity Summit in 2022 (COP 15) the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), 196 countries agreed to a series of sensible actions and targets for countries to reverse declines in nature. One target that has gained considerable traction globally is Target 3: “To protect and conserve at least 30% of the Earth's land and ocean areas by 2030”.
To be counted towards this 30% target, land must be effectively managed for nature conservation, have long-term protection, and be in good or recovering condition to ensure that biodiversity and ecosystem functions are supported.
If we take England as an example, the honest answer is not very well; at least not yet. Only around 7% of England’s land area meets the confirmed 30by30 protected for nature target (Defra, 2024). In practice this means we need to find, and effectively manage, approximately an additional 3.1 million hectares of land to get anywhere near to meeting this target by 2030. Where are we going to find this land, and what incentives are needed to do so, given that between 70-80% of the land in England is privately owned?
Currently, the focus of government incentives has been a mixture of approaches. These include policies aimed at builders and developers such as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), where they are mandated to increase biodiversity on/off site and ensure an overall 10% increase in nature habitats equivalent to replace those lost due to the building project. Second, there are policies with a nature-focus associated with the government’s climate change commitment targets. These include using nature-based actions to capture and store CO2 through activities such as planting new areas of land with trees, peatland restoration, and improving soil carbon. Third, there are financial incentives for farmers and land managers to adopt nature-friendly practices through Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) such as Sustainable Farming Incentives, Countryside Stewardship Schemes and Landscape Recovery Grants. And finally, there are Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS). These are being developed by 48 local nature networks across England with the aim is to identify locations for habitat creation or improvement, establish local priorities, and guide action to create nature recovery. Once the strategy is determined they will be delivered by a designated "responsible authority" (such as a county council or combined authority) in collaboration with local stakeholders including community groups, developers, and land managers.
So, if all the hectares associated with these incentives were added up, do back-of-envelope calculations suggest we reach the 3.2 million hectares of new land for nature that is needed by 2030? Sadly not. These calculations suggest we would still be ~2 million hectares short of England’s 30by30 commitment (Table 1).
Table 1: Government incentives and commitments to establish new land for nature in England by 2030
There are also many caveats associated with this number, not least there is a huge amount of double-counting going on; many policy commitments and financial incentives are for the same parcels of land. Also, BNG policies are often not resulting in 100% offsetting, far from it in many cases, with developers choosing onsite enhancements and not new land for nature elsewhere (although not captured in here are the BNG that will be associated with new large infrastructure projects, so this will balance this figure out somewhat) . Also, new land for nature land via Nature Recovery networks has yet to be reported, or in many cases, even identified, and many farming initiatives associated with nature-friendly ELMS policies are currently “on-hold”. This means we are probably even further away from reaching the 30by30 target than 2 million hectares. The area of land for nature is simply not big enough or joined up enough to allow nature to recover at scale and achieve the 30by30 target.
I suspect the same types of discussions, debates and apparent shortfalls are occurring in many countries across the world. Finding “new” land for nature is far from easy despite best intentions and government incentives and commitments.
To address this, I suggest that we need to ask the question: ‘who are the biggest actors that determine how the land in England is currently managed?’. This is a question that is far too often overlooked and where I believe a lot more thought needs to be given. For example, the top five UK supermarkets' food supply chains in the UK are linked to management of 4–7 million hectares of England’s farmland; land managed by water utility companies accounts for ~140,000 hectares (England) and other players such as insurance companies also own considerable land holdings. If even half of this land were managed in a nature-friendly way, we would and could reach the 30by30 commitment.
The question here then, is what commitments and incentives are needed to encourage these actors to invest in nature-friendly practices and restore and enhance their land for nature. For them it will not be financial incentives associated with finding new land for nature via ELMS, BNG or even carbon offsets. With these actors, it is the need to demonstrate why nature on the land that they currently manage, is critical to their company’s balance-sheet and risk register and ultimately their share price and shareholders. This is why an understanding of the financial risks associated with damaging natural capital assets, and the opportunities and benefits that can be obtained by working with nature, are so important.
Some are already doing starting to do so. Household names associated with food and everyday products such as Tesco, Waitrose, Unilever, Nestlé Purina and McCain are adopting regenerative agricultural practices on the land they manage. This is not because they want to be seen to be doing the right thing for nature (although customer preference will play some part), but because adopting these practices is showing greatly reduced soil erosion, greatly improved soil quality, enhanced biodiversity and carbon sequestration AND similar or higher crop yields. It is a win:win situation. The same is being shown on farms across Europe as well.
If regenerative agriculture became widespread for all farmland in England, this would and could make a huge step towards reversing the declines in species and habitats that currently we seem incapable of doing. But to persuade businesses to adopt nature-focused practices, we need to see transition support from governments to provide a framework to support the level of audit, and incentives associated with nature-friendly approaches for businesses to adopt.
Such an auditing process now exists - it’s called the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). This framework enables businesses to identify both the economic risks, and opportunities to be gained by enhancing and restoring the natural capital assets associated with their practices and supply chains. Only last week the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) announced it will begin standard-setting on nature-related risks and opportunities, drawing on the TNFD and highlighting its value in meeting investors’ growing demand for consistent, decision-useful information on nature. Globally the market adoption of the TNFD framework has now surpassed 730 major organisations, $22.4 trillion in assets under management, and many countries have now made TNFD mandatory. This is very good news and should give us all hope for reversing nature’s declines at scale – not least in England, where we have the unenviable label of one of the most nature-depletion nations in the world.
In summary, if we really want to see a rapid change in land-use, and have any chance of reaching 30by30 and reversing species declines, we now need to think about who manages the activities that currently occur on the greatest share of the land – and what incentives and structures are needed to ensure that there are solutions here. In many ways, we need to learn from a similar approach adopted for climate around 10 years ago. The framework developed by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) enabled companies to report consistent, comparable, and clear disclosure of climate-related financial risks and identify opportunities for offsetting their carbon emissions. Although originally voluntary, the TCFD framework has become the global standard and is now a requirement for many companies across the world and widely recognised as transformative in driving practices and actions associated with reducing their emissions footprints.
We need the same for nature.