The document summarizes key points from a conference on nature conservation. It includes: 1) Comments from several speakers praising protected landscape organizations for their innovative landscape-scale conservation work and urging continued collaboration. 2) A point about the need for long-term government support of Nature Improvement Areas and recognition of protected landscapes' role in conservation. 3) A quote from Professor Sir John Lawton expressing surprise at what protected landscapes were achieving for nature conservation.

1. Conference Report and Conclusions
Howard Davies

3. • Living within natural limits
• Demand for ever-higher standards of living
• 7% per year
• Doubling every
10 years
• Increase by over
a factor of 100 in
a lifetime

4. 1 Qatar 18.7
2 Ghana 13.5 List of countries by real GDP
3 Mongolia 11.5 growth rate (2011)
4 Turkmenistan 9.9
5 Iraq 9.6 GDP - the increase in value of
6 China 9.5 all final goods and services
7 Papua New Guinea 9.0 produced within a nation in a
8 Argentina 8.8 given year
9 Turkey 8.5
10 Sri Lanka 8.3 Most of these goods and
11 Laos 8.3 services come from natural
11 Eritrea 8.2 resources
12 Bhutan 8.1
13 India 7.8
14 Ethiopia 7.5
15 Panama 7.4
16 Timor-Leste 7.3
17 Mozambique 7.2
18 Afghanistan 7.1
19 Equatorial Guinea 7.1
20 Uzbekistan 7.1
21 Kyrgyzstan 7.0

5. Ecosystems Approach - Principles
Sustainable
Use
Conservation Equity

6. We need to stop buying things we
don’t need
With money we don’t have
To create impressions that won’t last
On people we don’t like
……because the economy, society and the
environment are fundamentally linked, and if we don’t
realise this now, we soon will

7. • More
• Bigger
• Better
• Joined
‘Landscape’ – an art
gallery with no
interesting pictures?

8. England’s wildlife is haemorrhaging at a truly alarming rate
• More than 40% of our
priority habitats in decline
• More than 30% of our
priority species in decline
• We do need the pictures in
the gallery

9. • Worrying deterioration
• Needs to be some prioritisation
• “Natural Beauty” allows us to bring together a whole range of
attributes – the review of management plans gives us and
opportunity
• We do need pictures in the gallery
• To better value the environment we may well need to engage more
fully with economists and social scientists

10. New tools to get the job done
• Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs), providing bigger, connected sites
for wildlife to live in and adapt to climate change.
• Biodiversity offsetting – new way for developers to ensure we don’t
lose wildlife sites and make them better by making and improving other
sites.
• Local Nature Partnerships to strengthen joined-up action across local
agencies and organisations
• Natural Resource Management Planning, a spatial framework for
mapping ecosystem services opportunities in Wales
• Defra’s Terrestrial Biodiversity Group, NAAONB and ENPAA
represented

11. A land owners perspective
•You can talk, push, manage and influence but land managers are needed to
help deliver. We are willing but need support.
•Strong leadership from government is required, plus plenty of collaboration
•The importance of tax incentives
•There is real importance in understanding the realities of managing the land
and the true costs involved.

12. Landscape scale?
protected landscapes
have been doing this
for ages

13. There’s been joined-up, innovative
‘Nature Improvement’ in AONBs
and National Parks for many years

14. • NIAs (and LNPs) are ‘a good thing’ and we have risen to their challenge with
some innovative stuff. Long-term support for the underpinning concept is
vital.
• We need to keep raising our game. We must be prepared to fail if necessary
and come back better and stronger

15. • The Northern Upland Chain
- a consortia of the willing
• 2000 square miles of
collaboration by design (not
accident)

16. Morecambe Bay Limestones & Wetlands Nature
Improvement Area
• 200 priority species
• People, people,
people and the
environment

17. “Together we must be better“
•More, bigger, better, more joined up - in PLs its do-able
•Store flood water in nature reserves, not living rooms!
•We need to make a positive choice – doing nothing is not an option
Rob Stoneman, CEO, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

18. “We need to be active to remain sustainable”
•Water is at the heart of our way of living
•Its no longer just a ‘nice thing to do’
Jean Spencer, Director or Regulation, Anglian Water

19. Endorsement by Richard Benyon MP, Under
Secretary of State, Defra
“I think you do heroic work”
“Really impressive vision
and drive”
“Landscape scale is important and
understood by AONBs”
“more strategic and integrated approach – will
encourage greener design and sustainable
“AONBs are key” development”

20. “Rebrand you guys”
“Sustainability is like
wetting yourself whilst
wearing a dark suit….or
teenage sex”
“subvert the
dominant paradigm”
“nature is a brand – brands are powerful
agents of change”
Ed Gillespie, Director and Co-founder, Futerra

21. When asked his opinion on what AONBs were doing to deliver, he replied
“I’m bloody gobsmacked”
Professor Sir John Lawton
The NAAONB Fourteenth Conference
Shaping Nature on a Landscape Scale
17th -19th July 2012

22. When asked his opinion on what AONBs were doing to deliver, he replied
“I’m bloody gobsmacked”
Professor Sir John Lawton
The NAAONB Fourteenth Conference
Shaping Nature on a Landscape Scale
17th -19th July 2012