A new report, Embracing Nature, published today by The Wildlife Trusts, identifies drought as the current leading threat to their nature reserves for the first time. The Wildlife Trusts, who are among the UK’s largest landowners with 2,600 nature reserves covering nearly 100,000 hectares (ha), also point to pollution, invasive species and habitat fragmentation as high risks. Drought is also considered to be the leading threat for the next 30 years, followed by other climate-driven dangers such as heatwaves and wildfires.

The report focuses on adapting to climate change and highlights that, based on a trajectory of 2°C warming by 2100, almost half of The Wildlife Trusts’ 2,600 reserves will be in areas of extreme wildfire risk, and three-quarters will see summer temperatures rising by an additional 1.5°C in the next 25 years.

In Hertfordshire and Middlesex, adaptation work is being undertaken across the Trust’s nature reserves, as well as on public and private land to re-connect and regenerate habitats to help nature cope with weather extremes. Chalk rivers and wetlands, woodlands and grasslands are some of the habitats being restored to support species at risk such as Water Voles, Brown Trout and critically endangered Scarce Tufted-sedge, through severe weather. For example:

• Scarce Tufted-sedge is only found at one Hertfordshire site, within the whole of the UK. Historically the plant would have grown in tussocks in water-logged habitats but within its boggy habitat, the squelch is starting to disappear and it is that sogginess that the plant needs to survive. Thanks to funding from Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme, the Trust is working to ensure the plant escapes extinction. Through a programme of surveying, habitat preparation, and then assisted colonisation, the Trust will deliver four distinct populations of Scarce Tufted-sedge across Hertfordshire. 

• At the Trust’s Lemsford Springs Nature Reserve and Stanborough Reedmarsh Nature Reserve, near Welwyn Garden City, restoration work will take place next month to reinstate 2.6ha of key wetland habitats and enhance 500m of the River Lea, helping these wetlands to buffer the impacts of drought and flood more resiliently and reduce impacts to the sensitive chalk stream lagoons nearby, which are a haven for winter wading birds, such as Green Sandpiper and Snipe. This work is part of an ambitious long-term project to join up Lemsford Springs with Stanborough Reedmarsh near Welwyn Garden City - by enhancing 2km of the River Lea. This year’s work will be the first stage of the project completed, funded by Highways England. In 2025, the Trust will be restoring the rest of the River Lea through Stanborough Park with funding from the Government's Species Survival Fund and in partnership with Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, Better Leisure and Stanborough Angling Club.

• The Trust is working across the area to connect and restore habitats, allowing wildlife to move freely – and in response to climate change. For example, the Trust’s acquisition of Archers Green Nature Reserve near Tewin, following a major public fundraising campaign, safeguards a vital grassland site, with a quality stretch of the River Mimram running through it – a significant location in the wildlife corridor jigsaw.

Sarah Perry, River Catchment Coordinator at Herts and Middlesex Trust says:

“Our area has been designated as critically water stressed since 2007 and we are seeing more droughts occur, with hotter drier summers and soils drying out. Although we are seeing heavy bursts of rainfall, these downfalls don’t percolate so readily into the chalk aquifer. Add to that our water usage is one of the highest in the country, at 163 litres per person per day, against the aim of 110 litres. With changes to rainfall patterns, soil compaction and high water use, environmental droughts are occurring more regularly and this is impacting on the flow and quality of the internationally important chalk rivers we have in the area, on our nature reserves and in the wider countryside.

“In 2021, we saw 50% of our rivers in Hertfordshire run dry and that resulted in widespread fish kills, putting species like wild Brown Trout and Barbel, whose numbers are already decreasing due to factors such as habitat loss and pollution, at further risk. The endangered Water Vole is also made more vulnerable by extreme conditions, having to relocate at times of drought or flood and becoming more exposed to predators.

“The actions we are taking improve prospects for our local habitats and wildlife, and, of course, people.”

The Wildlife Trusts have submitted Embracing Nature to the UK Government under its Adaptation Reporting Power, a provision of the 2008 UK Climate Change Act which allows the government to invite organisations of strategic national importance to report on their adaptation activities. The Wildlife Trusts are the first organisation to report under the latest fourth round, which closes at the end of this year.

Kathryn Brown, Director of Climate Change and Evidence at The Wildlife Trusts, says:

“The Wildlife Trusts are taking action to adapt to climate threats across all our land and marine habitats through helping nature to recover, slowing the flow of rivers, and restoring peatlands. This, in turn, supports wildlife and people to be more resilient to drought, wildfire, heatwaves and flooding. Nature-based solutions are now nature-based necessities, and we must all embrace the role that nature can play in enabling landscapes to adapt.

“We've seen one climate record after another broken over the past 12 months. The UK’s natural habitats, and the wildlife that depends on them, are under huge pressure so it’s vital that UK Government raises ambition on adapting to climate change.”

The Wildlife Trusts are calling on the UK Government to commit to:

• Report on, and increase where necessary, total investment in adaptation for nature and nature-based solutions to at least £3 billion per year up to 2030. An important component of this should be the continuation of the Nature for Climate Fund and strengthening of partnerships that provide nature-based solutions
• Re-start bespoke adaptation support services for organisations, like charities, who need it – through committing at least £1 million to its arm’s length bodies to provide support
• Move responsibility for the coordination of adaptation policy across UK Government from Defra to the Cabinet Office
• Immediately unblock or enact delayed policies from the last Government that will improve the resilience of the natural environment and its ability to help people to adapt. This includes banning the use of peat in horticulture, enabling wild beaver release licences, incorporating climate resilience in the new land use framework, enhancing regulation and enforcement related to pollution of our water bodies from agriculture and sewage discharges
• Maintain the ban on sand-eel fishing at sea. The ban in the North Sea is a core component of resilience for marine wildlife and we look forward to seeing this upheld

Read Embracing Nature – climate change adaptation at The Wildlife Trusts here.