A year ago, in blazing June sunshine, over 60,000 people came to Westminster to demand that the General Election lead to policies to ‘Restore Nature Now’.
The hope and optimism of that memorable day was sustained for weeks afterwards, with all the main political parties making pledges for nature and MPs elected on those platforms promising to make the new Parliament the most nature friendly yet.
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In his first month the new Defra Secretary of State, Steve Reed, delivered a formal statement to the House of Commons, stating ‘We human beings are not merely observers of nature, we are an integral part of it, and our future depends on protecting it. That is why this Government will begin the work of saving it.’
As is so often the case in Westminster, warm words were followed by colder policy winds. Speeches from the Chancellor and the Prime Minister in early 2025 attacked bats, newts and spiders as ‘blockers’, laying the ground for Planning & Infrastructure Bill proposals to substitute effective environmental protections for weaker ones.
In the space of eight months, nature went from an integral foundation for the economy to being portrayed as a roadblock to growth.
Nature-bashing extended beyond legislation, with the Sustainable Farming Incentive suddenly paused in March, amidst rumours of deep cuts to come to the nature friendly farming budget.
Faced with this anti-nature blizzard, The Wildlife Trusts took a stand. On the 22nd May we launched our ‘Broken Promises’ action, holding the UK Government to account for making commitments to recover nature and then pursuing policies which will do the opposite. Over just a few weeks, over 30,000 people emailed their MPs and the Chancellor, asking for the damaging Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to be removed and for Government policy across the board to change course to boost nature recovery.
If you took part in the action – thank you. You are making a difference. June 2025 has seen the first signs of a more positive policy approach to nature.
The Comprehensive Spending Review on 11th June saw a tight four-year funding settlement for Defra, but one in which the crucial nature friendly farming budget was protected, as The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, other environmental organisations and farming groups had united to call for.
This means that the transition to a farming support system where farmers are fairly rewarded for restoring nature can continue.
More financial good news came on 19th June, when Defra confirmed that £100 million of fines from water companies, as well as future fines and penalties, would go to freshwater recovery projects. There had been real concerns that this allocation arrangement, started by the previous UK Government as the Water Restoration Fund, would be abandoned, with fines earmarked for the black hole of general Treasury funds. Instead, this Fund preserves the crucial link between polluters paying, and those payments being used to undo the damage caused.
Perhaps most striking of all, marine policy has lifted in ambition. The UN Ocean Conference in mid-June saw the UK Government propose a ban on bottom trawling across 41 offshore Marine Protected Areas in English waters, addressing the destruction of marine habitats identified in David Attenborough’s new film ‘Ocean’.
Ministers also promised that the UK would ratify the High Seas Treaty this year, an important step towards better protection of international waters.
Minke whale off Rathlin Island ©Tom McDonnell
There has also been a welcome absence. The Government pushed out a series of announcements and speeches about infrastructure between 16 and 23rd June, and – unlike this winter – Ministers refrained from bashing bats, newts and other species.
Perhaps the Chancellor and her colleagues have listened to nature-lovers and reflected on the growing evidence that it is developer decisions and political-back-and-forth that cause most project delays, not environmental protections?
Perhaps also, those at the top of Government have studied the extensive polling that shows the Brits of all political persuasions are united by a love of nature, and that they believe that good growth – that people can feel and benefit from – requires a flourishing natural world. As the new Infrastructure Strategy rightly notes ‘we must remain alive to the risks to growth posed by climate change and nature degradation’.
Perhaps. As welcome as recent announcements have been, significant threats to nature recovery remain on the Government’s agenda.
Marbled white butterfly on a common spotted orchid in a wildflower meadow © Tom Marshall
Defra are consulting on proposals to weaken Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) for minor and medium-sized developments, which could see the majority of developments losing the requirement to compensate for nature losses.
This is a potentially calamitous move for emerging nature markets, threatening growth as well as nature protections. You can help warn the Government about the consequences.
The environmentally regressive Planning and Infrastructure Bill also continues to progress. Thanks in part to the over 30,000 emails sent through the Broken Promises action, Commons Report stage saw a group of backbench Labour MPs join together with the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greens to vote for nature protections to be added to the Bill.
However the Government rejected this cross-party plea, and the Bill has gone to the House of Lords, tottering atop a pile of old chestnuts about the impact of environmental protections on development.
It is then very much a case of one swallow does not a summer make. The Wildlife Trusts will continue to urge the Government to urgently change course on planning, by withdrawing Part 3 of the Planning Bill, adding protections for chalk streams and dropping proposed BNG weakening, and to recognise – as they did in pre-election commitments – that nature recovery is a pre-requisite for national recovery.
Amidst the first signs that the Government may be starting to listen, we need your help to build further momentum.
Through taking part in the BNG action, marine campaign, continued Planning Bill advocacy and the mass lobby of Westminster on 9th July, you can demonstrate to Ministers that protecting and restoring nature is hugely popular, as well as the right thing to do.
June 2029 will see the fifth anniversary of the Restore Nature Now march, as well as possibly the next General Election campaign.
If we turn the tide now, imagine where we could be then – the Government pointing to a record of kept promises and halted nature decline, and all parties in Westminster competing to go further, and to bring wildlife back to abundance across the country.
The rallying cry of ‘Restore Nature Now’ is more needed – and more full of potential – than ever before.
