Image via Wildlife and Countryside Link

A new report from Wildlife and Countryside Link, with its partner Link networks in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, shows that only up to 6% of UK land is properly protected for nature. This is far short of the Government’s 30% by 2030 target. Conservationists warn that the UK risks missing its target by a ‘country mile’.

Download “30by30: 2025 UK Progress Report” here.

30by30 is part of the international Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed to by the UK Governments at COP15 in 2022. The agreement commits governments to halting and reversing biodiversity loss and protecting at least 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. In the UK, delivering on this means restoring nature across a network of well-managed, legally protected areas. Achieving the target is critical to tackling both the climate and nature crises.

But with just five years to go, progress has been stalled by challenges including: a failure to designate new sites for nature, uncertainty in nature friendly farming policy, and continued underfunding for site restoration.

The analysis, which drew on SSSI condition data, paints a stark picture. In England, the report shows that just 2.83% of land is effectively protected and well managed for nature. The decline from 2.93% in 2024 is likely to reflect new monitoring data, as recent surveys of SSSIs reveal that more than previously thought are not in favourable condition.

Across the other nations of the UK, the data shows a similar pattern with just 2.14% of land in good condition in Wales, 4% in Northern Ireland and 12.63% in Scotland. The report found that in all four countries similar problems are blocking progress on nature recovery. These include:

• Slow expansion of protected networks – the pace of adding new protected areas remains far too slow.
  
• Poor condition of designated sites – many protected areas are still damaged or degraded due to insufficient or inappropriate management.
• Harmful activities continue – destructive practices are still allowed in some of our most important places for wildlife.
• Lack of monitoring – Governments often don’t have the data they need to track biodiversity or plan recovery.

Although 38% of UK waters are designated as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), many remain exposed to damaging activities including bottom trawling, offshore energy development, pollution, dredging, and cable laying. Inadequate and outdated Government monitoring means the extent of effective protection is unclear. Increased funding for monitoring efforts is urgently needed to understand the state of nature in MPAs and the activities affecting them.

Max Bryant, CEO of Northern Ireland Environment Link, said: “Unfortunately it has been clear for a while that we are not doing enough to protect our environment. We only have to look at the state of our rivers and lakes to see that this is the case. This timely report shows that we have even further to go in NI to meet our targets than many may have anticipated. Amongst other things, NI needs long term, legally binding and fully funded targets to better protect our biodiversity and public health. Earlier this year the Office for Environmental Protection recommended that DAERA should consider proposing legislation for setting statutory targets to increase the extent and condition of protected sites. We are still waiting for that to happen. We need all of the Executive parties to co-operate on this and support the AERA Minister and NIEL would be happy to work with all parties to help meet our targets and better protect our environment.”

Read more