30 by 30 in Norfolk: Just 5% of Norfolk is protected for nature

On December 19 2022, 190 countries signed on to a ground-breaking international agreement to protect 30% of their land and seas for nature by 2030. This was agreed at the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference, held in Montreal. The objective of the agreement is to half the terrifying loss of nature* and biodiversity globally, on the understanding that the costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action. 30% is considered the safe minimum level of terrestrial and marine area protection in order for nature loss to stabilise and for wildlife to thrive.

*Note: The conversion of natural and semi-natural habitat land areas into modern, intensive agriculture farmland is the accepted primary driver of nature loss. Livestock farming is worse than crop production as livestock require a large area of intensive crop production land in addition to pasture land to provide the volumes of feed necessary to sustain modern livestock numbers. On a per kg of protein and calorie basis, livestock have a much higher impact than crops across most environmental metrics.

So we have the objective. Where do we stand today? Arguably we need know our current performance before we pursue any targets.

Answering this question requires assessing the legal protections that exist in the UK that protect land in a natural state so that associated nature can thrive. This is complicated by the fact that a range of landscape protections exist in the UK, with many related to aesthetic and geological features rather than ecosystems. We have completed this exercise for Norfolk, mapping all the areas that are currently protected for nature and comparing their acreage against Norfolk's total.

We have also gone a step further and mapped most of the significant areas of natural habitat in Norfolk that do not benefit from legal protections. These serve as the obvious opportunities for expanding protections.

See the map below for the current status:

30 by 30 in Norfolk: The Map

Legend:

Forest green: Natural habitats where legal nature-focused protections are in place

Yellow green: Natural habitats that do not benefit from legal protections

Light green: Rewilding projects (not legally protected but with typically nature enhancement are mandated by government agreements) and smaller restoration projects

Orange: Estate parkland (parkland is largely unprotected but is often home to important natural features)

To see the full map in Google My Maps, follow this link.

Supporting information, including each asset and its size, can be found in this publicly available Google Sheet.

Findings - Summary

• Just over 5% of Norfolk's land area benefits from legal nature protections.

• These legal protections include National Nature Reserves (NNRs) and Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSIs), plus areas owned by conservation charities - this ownership provides a degree of legal protection.

• Total mapped habitats (protected + unprotected) cover 9.4% of Norfolk and spread across ~126,000 acres.* **

• These acres are spread over more than 350 natural capital assets that include most of the major natural areas in Norfolk.***

• Based on the rate of expansion of legally protected areas between 1986 and 2025, it would take over 160 years to reach 20% of Norfolk being protected for nature.

• Many of the areas that do not benefit from legal protection have been retained since historic photos (1980s) and maps of the area, suggesting some form of de facto protection (this may be due to, among other reasons, the land being of marginal quality and reduced utility for non-nature purposes).

*The area of Norfolk used for this analysis is 1,343,210 acres, representing the area of Norfolk County Council boundaries minus marine areas within the Wash.

**This figure excludes most of the SSSI associated with Thetford Forest (the Breckland Forest SSSI) as this mostly constitutes commercial forestry plantations, which typically have less biodiversity value. If added, the Breckland Forest SSSI would add ~2.1% to the overall figure.

***To our knowledge, these assets cover nearly all of the major natural areas within Norfolk. Due to time constraints, a large number of smaller natural areas like small woodlands have not been added. However, due to the large land area that has already been mapped, and the small size of these additional areas, adding these assets would likely not make a huge difference to the 9.4% figure; this would be unlikely to exceed 11 or 12% once all further assets are mapped.

The methodology is provided further below in this article. Breakdowns of protected areas and habitats by different categories are provided in Tables 1 and 2 below.

Norfolk 30 by 30, Protection Type Breakdown

Our analysis indicates the natural area of Norfolk can be broken down by the following types of protection (or lack thereof):

Table 1. Natural and semi-natural areas summarised by the type of nature protection associated with the area and measured as a percentage of Norfolk's terrestrial land area.

Norfolk 30 by 30, Habitat Type Breakdown

Our analysis indicates the natural area of Norfolk can be broken down by the following types of habitat. Note, these figures are high-level, indicative estimates only - many of the mapped natural capital assets feature more than one type of habitat, which has not been captured in these figures.

Table 2. Natural and semi-natural areas summarised by the type of nature protection associated with the area and measured as a percentage of Norfolk's terrestrial land area.

Supporting information, including each asset and its size, can be found in this publicly available Google Sheet.

How does this compare to historic figures?

In the 1986 walking companion book 'The Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path' (p. 21) Bruce Robinson wrote:

'It is interesting to note that protected areas including nature and bird reserves, Thetford Forest, SSSIs and certain Broads areas represent 5% of the total of Norfolk county, or 1.5% measured in terms of land actually managed for wildlife.'

Table 1 above indicates that this figure now sits at approximately 7% including a) legally designated nature reserves, b) undesignated reserves owned by conservation charities and c) the Thetford Forest SSSI (Breckland Forest SSSI). Excluding Thetford Forest, the remaining 5% is managed for wildlife. As discussed above, most of the Thetford Forest SSSI is commercial conifer plantations with limited biodiversity value; we have therefore excluded these areas from the nature calculations.

This shift over time indicates we have made a fair amount of progress in protecting nature over the past 40 years. One example was the 1999 designation of the 12,000 acre Stanford Training Ground (the military training area owned and run by the Ministry of Defence where civilians are not permitted to enter) as an SSSI in 1999. With most of the pressures of human activity lifted, nature now thrives in this area (like a smaller and less extreme version of the Chernobyl exclusion zone nature reserve).

There is, however, much more to be done. As discussed above, at this rate, it would take several hundred years to meet a 20% or 30% nature protection figure.

30 by 30 in Norfolk: Should National Landscapes and National Parks be included in 30 by 30 targets?

The Boris Johnson government claimed that British National Landscapes (formerly known as Areas of Natural Beauty, or AONBs) and National Parks should count towards the 30% terrestrial figure. However, these landscapes are more of an aesthetic designation than a biodiversity one. While they typically contain important natural features and nature hotspots, many of these areas mostly consist of either intensive arable crop production or livestock grazing and as such are relatively nature depleted when compared to natural ecosystems like intact rivers, woodlands and wetlands. A more granular analysis is therefore required to understand which areas within National Parks and Landscapes should actually be considered as protected for nature vs protection to maintain landscape aesthetics and/or traditional farming. The latter aspects are important to protect but they are not the focus of this research. We have compiled granular figures for the Broads National Park and the North Norfolk Coast National Landscape areas.

How does Norfolk compare to other parts of England?

In Devon, arguably thought of as one of England's most nature rich counties, the Devon Wildlife Trust has calculated that under 7% of the county is protected by SSSI status (in England, most NNRs are also designated as SSSIs).

In Sussex, also renowned for its natural assets, the local wildlife trust estimates that 16% of land is protected for nature, though a breakdown of designations is not provided.

In Suffolk, which like Norfolk is known more as a breadbasket than a nature reserve and whose landscape is largely dedicated to intensive arable production, the figure for SSSI protection is estimated at 8%. However, a quick perusal of relevant maps indicate that at least half of this relates to protections of land with reduced and/or minimal biodiversity value, namely Breckland Forest and Breckland Farmland.

What next for conservation in Norfolk?

There is an argument that, given Norfolk's importance as a food producing region, restoring 30% of its land could hurt food security; restoration should instead focus on the English uplands that do not produce as much food. This a valid point. WildEast, the local gentry-led ecological restoration project, has set the objective of restoring 20% of East Anglia's land. 15% to 20% is perhaps the more appropriate objective for Norfolk to aim for given its criticality in UK food security. This should be supported by large areas of the county converting to more nature friendly farming practices.

Our research indicates that there are large areas of natural habitat in Norfolk that are not protected under law. This should be addressed via further designations.

Chalk streams and rivers, a globally rare habitat that is well represented in Norfolk, could arguably form the architecture of future conservation efforts. Better protections and natural buffers for the Nar and the Wensum rivers, plus the establishment of a nature corridor between their relatively closely located springs, would form a linear nature reserve from the Wash in the north west of Norfolk through to Norwich and thereafter the Broads. This would provide an invaluable level of connectivity within the county.

Methodology - 30 by 30 in Norfolk

30 by 30 in Norfolk: Sources and Methodology

A mixed methodology and set of sources was used to build the 30 by 30 Norfolk map. Geospatial data for protected areas including NNRs and SSSIs were downloaded from the Natural England Open Data Portal (example link available here). Land owned by conservation organisations like Norfolk Wildlife Trust and the RSPB were obtained from the Who Owns Norfolk land ownership database.

Local knowledge and word of mouth, including social media sources and emails to the Who Owns Norfolk mailbox, were used to identify rewilding projects and other nature hotspots and restoration projects. Visual reviews of Google Maps helped to identify areas of land that resembled natural ecosystems. These were then corroborated against the Defra Magic Map, using layers such as ancient woodland and Priority Habitat Maps, plus desk-based research of the asset, for confirmation.

Natural areas included within the protected and unprotected land figures:

• Norfolk's National Nature Reserves (NNRs).

• Biodiversity-focused Sites of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSIs) the county, with some exclusions for SSSIs with minimal biodiverse features.

• The rewilding projects known to Rewilding Norfolk.

• Reserves owned by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust (most are also legally protected as NNRs or SSSIs).

• Reserves managed by the RSPB.

• The major areas of natural habitat and ecosystems that are not legally protected but which are maintained by private, governmental or NGO landowners.

• Most of the old estate parkland, which typically includes areas of woodland, ponds and old trees.

• Hedgerows (total area of hedgerows has been calculated at the national (England) level - these were downscaled based on Norfolk's land area contribution to England).

• A small number of minor restoration projects identified by local naturalists.

Exclusions:

• The parts of SSSIs and NNRs that fall within the boundaries of Norfolk County Council but which only feature marine ocean areas. These have been excluded as this map is focused on terrestrial conservation only.

• County Wildlife Sites (these do not enjoy the same level of legal protection as SSSIs or NNRs, but could be added to indicate further areas that could be protected in the future).

• Nature friendly farming, such as organic farms, the grazing pastures of Halvergate Marshes (protected under SSSI status) and the intensively farmed Breckland Farmland SSSIs. Nature friendly farming will be critical for the protection of Norfolk's nature and will be added to the map over time, however, it will be treated as a separate category as it is not technically natural habitat, which is the focus of the map above.

• SSSIs that primarily feature commercial forestry or other non-natural features like farmland- e.g., Breckland Forest SSSI (roughly synonymous with Thetford Forest) or the Breckland Farmland SSSI.

• It does not yet include all ancient woodlands that are still in a semi-natural state, but these will be added. Our estimates indicate the total area of these unaccounted ancient woodlands is relatively small.

• Woodland that appears to be commercial monoculture conifer plantations have been excluded

• Geologically focused SSSIs with no apparent biodiversity features - these have been marked black on the map above.

A breakdown of the protected areas by protection and habitat type is provided in Tables 1 and 2 in a previous section of this article.

Ends