Record £60 million investment to help UK endangered species
A Lapwing. Credit: Natural England/Allan Drewitt
The Government has announced the largest ever investment in wildlife recovery, 130 projects supporting 364 threatened species across England will share a £60 million in the Government's Species Recovery Programme,
Since 1970, wildlife populations have fallen by a third with one in six species at risk of extinction. This record funding uplift will supports the Government mission to reverse this decline. It will supports plants, animals and fungi across woodlands, farmed landscapes, freshwater and marine environments. To date, the Species Recovery Programme has prevented the national extinction of at least 35 species like the large blue butterfly and the fen orchid.
The funding, delivered by Natural England, forms as part of the Wild Again: Restoring England’s Wildlife initiative, with a further £30 million supporting species recovery across the national forest estate.
Among the projects receiving funding is research into the impact of "forever chemicals" and other contaminants on dolphins and harbour porpoises around the UK coast, led by the Zoological Society of London, with findings used to prioritise action to protect these animals. Elsewhere, the northern dune tiger beetle, one of England's fastest and rarest insects, will benefit from habitat restoration on Cumbria's coastal dunes, led by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust.
The swallowtail butterfly, Britain's largest butterfly and now restricted to a handful of wetland sites, will benefit from monitoring work tracking individual butterflies and the milk-parsley plant they depend on, as part of a project spanning multiple regions. Natural England is also using detection dogs and environmental DNA technology to search for surviving populations of the ghost orchid, one of England's most elusive plants, unrecorded in the wild for decades.
The funding supports the Government's legal commitments to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 and reduce species extinction risk by 2042.
Mary Creagh MP said:
"Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and we are determined to turn that around by doubling the amount of money available. This £60 million investment is the largest ever made in the Species Recovery Programme.
“It will make a real difference to 364 threatened species, from dolphins and harbour porpoises around our coast to the northern dune tiger beetles and swallow tail butterflies.
"Nature recovery depends on the work of dedicated conservationists across the country. This funding will help them go further and faster in bringing our rarest wildlife back from the brink."