Berkshire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy
Now is a really exciting time for nature.
We need to think about where Berkshire nature needs our help the most and how people can benefit from giving nature a hand. Help us decide.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs) are spatial strategies to recover nature across England: part of the 2021 Environment Act. Together, they will cover the country in a Nature Recovery Network (NRN).
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead are excited to be the Responsible Authority for our Berkshire LNRS. Bracknell, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire and Wokingham are supporting authorities with Natural England. They will help contribute to the strategy. Updates on the progress of the LNRS are posted below.
Each LNRS will map areas of current particular importance for biodiversity, and work with partners from many groups, from landowners to businesses, to eNGOs, and the public. Priorities for nature recovery will be agreed and these will be used to create a local habitat map. These will depict what needs to happen to achieve the agreed aims for nature. This will link up with delivery mechanisms, such as Biodiversity Net Gain for planning and Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes for land management including farming.
Find a blog here from Natural England for more information on Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
Updates
Updates on the Local Nature Recovery Strategy regularly posted here.
Update January 2024
The Berkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy is truly underway!
Stakeholder Engagement Events
We are excited to be beginning work with Just Ideas, who have been commissioned for creation of engagement strategy, delivery of strategy including 11 workshops and evaluation. In March, 3 workshops will be focussed at farmers, land owners and woodland managers – where as well as finding out priorities for nature we will be providing support on Biodiversity Net Gain and registering interest in signing up to the LNRS. 6 workshops in April will be spread across each Berkshire Borough, to work with local communities in finding out their priorities for nature. 1 workshop will be online also. This engagement will be accompanied by a survey where stakeholders can further engage with their thoughts on nature recovery in Berkshire. Finally, during a summer an informative, Berkshire wide event will take place, engaging people with the progress of the strategy and collecting feedback.
Just Ideas, an engagement and facilitation company based in Reading, are supporting our stakeholder engagement and workshop design and implementation. They have created our stakeholder engagement plan, are supporting the evaluation of the workshops and are a part of many of our working groups, ensuring that sound information is collected in workshops, to influence the creation of the strategy.
Data Prioritisation
Feedback from these stakeholder events will form that basis of the outputs of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy, these are primarily the Opportunity Map and the List of Priorities. Berkshire will be inputting our data layers and targets for biodiversity, gathered from our stakeholder engagement, into a programme called Marxan. With the help of TVERC, we will create maps of the best areas for nature conservation, balancing the different locally specific priorities and challenges we face in Berkshire. TVERC are also helping to create our shortlist of priority species, these will help inform our priorities for nature as well.
After our maps and lists are complete, these will be combined with our Description of the Area of Berkshire, and will create the final LNRS document. After being checked by our supporting authorities and the RBWM Cabinet, the strategy is predicted to be published in Spring 2025.
-
Share Our Data Prioritisation methodology on Facebook Share Our Data Prioritisation methodology on Twitter Share Our Data Prioritisation methodology on Linkedin Email Our Data Prioritisation methodology link
Our Data Prioritisation methodology
An important part of our Berkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy is the method of choosing which areas of Berkshire to prioritise for nature recovery. We cannot select everywhere: we have to decide where is most important to focus effort on first. Here in Berkshire, we decided to input priorities from all of our stakeholders (from our workshops and survey) and from documents existing on nature recovery from various councils, public bodies and NGOs, into a piece of software called Marxan. This undergoes a process called Systematic Conservation Planning.
More on Marxan
Marxan is a Decision Support software tool for conservation... Continue reading
-
Share Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed on Facebook Share Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed on Twitter Share Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed on Linkedin Email Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed link
Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed
Our three workshops for farmers, landowners, land managers and foresters have been completed.
Below is a map of where representatives at the workshops managed land across Berkshire
We saw representatives from the following sectors:
Central Berkshire - (29 attendees)
- Parish council representatives
- Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust Representatives
- Ecologists– Reading Borough Council
- Farmers/Landowners x 5
- BioCap
- Forestry Commission
- University of Reading – agro-environment group x3
- Farmer cluster facilitator
- Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead officers – Natural Environment Team and Equalities and Diversity team
- Berkshire College of Agriculture
- Atomic Weapons Establishment ecologist
East Berkshire - (48 attendees)
- Ecologists Slough... Continue reading
Responsible Authority
-
Email bnc@rbwm.gov.uk
Supporting Authorities
-
Supporting Authority
BF -
Supporting Authority
RB -
Supporting Authority
SB -
Supporting Authority
WB -
Supporting Authority
Email ecology@wokingham.gov.uk
Introductory Webinars - Slides
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinar - Farmers, Landowners, Foresters and Land managers.pdf (2.3 MB) (pdf)
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinars - Interested Residents.pdf (2.28 MB) (pdf)
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinars - NGOs.pdf (2.31 MB) (pdf)
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinars - Councillors.pdf (2.21 MB) (pdf)
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinars - Public Bodies.pdf (2.31 MB) (pdf)
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinars - Businesses.pdf (2.28 MB) (pdf)
-
Berkshire Nature Recovery Introductory Webinars - Developers.pdf (2.25 MB) (pdf)
Introductory Webinars - Recordings
-
An introductory video to the Berkshire Nature Recovery Strategy, specifically for those representing local residents of Berkshire.
-
An introductory video to the Berkshire Nature Recovery Strategy, specifically for those representing NGOs
-
An introductory video to the Berkshire Nature Recovery Strategy, specifically for those representing local farmers, landowners, foresters and land managers.
-
An introductory video to the Berkshire Nature Recovery Strategy, specifically for those representing local borough, town and parish councils.
-
An introductory video to the Berkshire Nature Recovery Strategy, specifically for those representing local businesses.