The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has welcomed the draft Nature Recovery Strategy for Northern Ireland as a ‘step forward’.
In its response to DAERA’s consultation on the strategy, the OEP states there is much to welcome in the proposed approach, and identifies a number of opportunities for further improvements.
The Programme for Government 2024-2027 and the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) together set out the Executive’s commitment to addressing biodiversity loss. Under these, the purpose of the Nature Recovery Strategy is described as being to ensure Northern Ireland will achieve the Global Biodiversity Framework’s aim to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and ensure 30% of land and sea is effectively managed for nature.
Natalie Prosser, CEO of the OEP, said: “The Strategy has an important role to play. If well-designed and delivered by the Executive and other public bodies, an effective strategy should drive efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
“The Strategy recognises the severity of nature’s decline and clearly outlines why this matters. It outlines key pressures and drivers of decline, and the wider policy context.
“We support the mission to ‘take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving, restoring and sustainably using biodiversity’. There is a high level of ambition, for example to restore ecosystems, reduce the number of species threatened with extinction and increase species abundance, with bigger, better managed and more connected areas for nature.
“In proposing new actions for nature recovery, the Strategy is a step forward. We are particularly supportive of the objective and actions to mainstream nature recovery across government and to increase the money available for restoring nature.”
The OEP response identifies a number of areas where the draft strategy could be strengthened:
Need to scale and speed up implementation
There is an over-reliance on developing further new strategies and plans, exploring options and carrying out reviews, without the requisite degree of tangible actions for their implementation. We suggest that the Strategy is amended to reflect the need to move from planning and strategic thinking towards delivery and implementation at scale and at pace.
Clarity about outcomes
The draft strategy would be significantly strengthened by providing greater clarity on the outcomes that DAERA wants to achieve and by when. We recommend that this includes additional outcomes such as to halt and reverse the decline in the abundance of species. These should be accompanied by related actions that stack up to achieve them.
Ensure all environmental pressures are addressed.
The OEP response states that greater breadth of attention is needed to address all the key pressures affecting biodiversity.
Coherence
The response welcomes the strategy’s ambition to achieve greater support for nature recovery from across government and public authorities, and in particular its recognition of the important role for the Environmental Principles Policy Statement (EPPS) in ensuring that the natural environment is considered in policymaking. The EPPS has now been published and the OEP will be monitoring its implementation.
However, the response also identifies an inconsistent and potentially confusing approach to collating relevant actions from other documents such as the EIP.
Protected Sites
Improving the condition and increasing the extent of protected sites are essential tools to achieve nature’s recovery. The OEP reported on the implementation of laws relating to these sites in April 2025 and this consultation response identifies several opportunities for the Nature Recovery Strategy to address issues raised in that report.
The OEP makes eight recommendations for amendments to the draft strategy. The response can be found in full by clicking on the blue button to the right of this page.
