Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur eleifend tortor nec augue pretium
Across the country, substantial work has already been underway for years to restore nature at local level.
Farmers are improving soils and water retention. Catchment partnerships are restoring rivers and wetlands. Conservation bodies are recovering habitats and species. Communities are bringing woodlands, commons and urban green spaces back into use. Local authorities are exploring nature-based responses to flooding, overheating and water management. Regional partnerships are developing increasingly sophisticated opportunity mapping and modelling to identify where restoration can deliver the greatest public benefit.
This activity has created a strong foundation for an ambitious response to the ecological and climate challenges we now face. What has been missing, however, is a unifying framework capable of connecting these efforts into a coherent ecological network that can command broad support and attract investment and funding at the scale required.
That is the purpose of the Strategic Nature Network (SNN).
While nature is often treated as secondary to economic growth, the reality is that the economy exists within society, and society exists within nature, making healthy ecosystems the fundamental foundation for human wellbeing, resilience and all sustainable development.
Repairing the Earth’s biosphere and tackling climate change are essential if we are to restore a safe operating space for humanity. Scientific assessments indicate that seven of the nine planetary boundaries linked to the stability of Earth’s systems have been crossed (see below), highlighting the increasing risks created by human pressure on the natural world.
These concerns are reflected in the global 30x30 commitments agreed through the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022, including the UK commitment that by 2030 at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration.
Yet many countries, including the UK, will struggle to meet these targets without a significant increase in practical delivery and a step change in investment and funding.
At the same time, the economic consequences of inaction are becoming clearer. The combined climate and nature crisis is now widely recognised as a material threat to growth, productivity, public health and finances; estimates suggest 6–12% of GDP could be at risk by 2030, and substantially more if tipping points are crossed. In short, environmental risk is materialising while economic opportunity is being missed.
There is also a paradox in the UK context. The degraded condition of much of the natural environment means that where markets reward ecological improvement, through biodiversity net gain, natural carbon sequestration, water resilience or wider ecosystem services; the potential for measurable uplift is considerable. A low ecological baseline is not desirable, but it does mean that well-designed restoration can generate significant gains.
From a purely economic perspective, restoring nature in the UK should therefore be seen not as a drag on growth, but as an investable route to resilience, productivity and value creation.
Nature already performs infrastructure type functions upon which the economy and society depend. It stores, filters and regulates water, reduces flood and drought risk, supports agriculture through soil fertility and pollination, cools towns and cities during heatwaves, stores carbon, stabilises coastlines and riverbanks, and supports physical and mental wellbeing. It underpins much of the landscape quality on which tourism and local identity depend.
These are infrastructure services in every meaningful sense. However, it is important to distinguish between assets and infrastructure. A woodland, peatland, wetland, saltmarsh or species-rich meadow is a natural asset. When those assets are connected and functioning coherently as a resilient ecological system to perform at their best, that constitutes infrastructure.
A lamppost is not transport infrastructure; it is an asset within a wider transport network. Equally, a tree is natural capital, but it is part of the connected ecological network of habitats, rivers, soils and landscapes that provides long-term public value.
The SNN advances a simple proposition: the UK’s ecological network should be recognised, maintained and invested in as critical national infrastructure.
This view is increasingly shared by sectors already exposed to escalating climate and ecological risk. Infrastructure operators can see the growing cost of flooding and overheating. Water companies understand the value of healthy catchments. Food producers recognise the risks associated with soil degradation, water stress and declining pollinators. Local government is facing the cost of more frequent extreme weather events. Insurers are alert to rising claims exposure linked to climate impacts.
Many of these actors are beginning to recognise that grey infrastructure alone will not be sufficient. Natural systems must form part of the national operating model. The evidence base supporting this approach is growing. A recent review of more than 20,000 case studies found that nature-based solutions were more cost-effective than hard engineering approaches 71% of the time, while also delivering wider co-benefits.
The SNN has been created to connect, strengthen and invest in the most important places already rebuilding nature, while guiding future restoration where it can deliver the greatest public benefit.
Developed through the Rebuilding Nature alliance, it seeks to reposition nature from a peripheral environmental concern to a core driver of resilience, health and prosperity. Its purpose is to unite those already delivering change on the ground with business, finance, funders and public leadership behind a shared mission: to rebuild nature at the scale required, and in doing so secure lasting benefits.
This includes:
• Building the SNN – a connected national system of landscapes and ecosystems that together form the UK’s critical natural infrastructure.
• Enabling investment through Identifying Nature Investment Zones – place-based building blocks of the network where public funding and private investment can be blended efficiently into delivery.
• Restarting natural processes across the network – helping landscapes to become more adaptive, productive, resilient and self-sustaining in a changing climate.
This framing matters because it shifts the conversation away from isolated projects to national systems, from short-term grants to long-term investment, and from environmental obligation to economic resilience and prosperity.
An SNN composed of ecologically connected Nature Investment Zones provides an essential nature-based counterpart to the UK’s transport and utility networks.
Just as transport networks support movement and commerce, the SNN would enable resilience, productivity, health and long-term stability.
Where it intersects with existing infrastructure, it can help roads, railways and utilities become more resilient to flooding, overheating, erosion and landslip.
Across catchments, it can improve water quality while moderating flood and drought extremes.
Across rural landscapes, it can improve soil health, support pollinators abundance, support yields, reduce fire risk and strengthen resilience to pests, disease and climate stress.
Across towns and cities, it can provide cooling, cleaner air, access to green space and health benefits.
Taken together, the SNN creates the basis for a multi-decadal national infrastructure programme focused on restoring the natural systems upon which all other systems depend.
If nature is recognised as infrastructure, it can begin to access the forms of capital that infrastructure attracts.
That does not mean relying on a single source of finance. It means designing a blended framework capable of accommodating different needs, time horizons and return profiles.
Some areas may be supported through public funding where benefits are predominantly societal. Others may attract private investment linked to biodiversity, carbon, water or resilience outcomes. Corporate investment linked to supply chain security or ESG objectives may have an increasing role to play.
What matters is financing a system designed around permanence, coordination and scale.
Constructing a shared national framework creates the opportunity for a virtuous circle: wider support for nature, greater investor confidence, more effective public funding, and the long-term maintenance of a network that remains dynamic as climate conditions change.
The modelling behind the SNN starts to quantify the true scale of the UK’s natural infrastructure opportunity. 3.9m hectares of restoration corridors would help create a fully connected national nature network capable of supporting biodiversity recovery, climate adaptation, water resilience and long-term economic and societal resilience. The benefits of delivering the SNN are valued at hundreds of billions.
Restored to good ecological condition, the core land area of the SNN could generate an additional £600bn in benefits.
The climate value is equally significant. The terrestrial SNN v1 currently locks up approximately 8.5m tonnes of CO₂ each year, over 50 years valued at over £125bn. Building the English terrestrial restoration zone could remove more than 300m tonnes of CO₂ over 50 years, worth a further £24bn.
The benefits extend far beyond biodiversity and carbon. The SNN would reduce flood and drought risk, cool towns and cities during heatwaves, improve water quality, strengthen food and farming resilience, support pollinators and wildlife, create healthier places to live and increase people’s access to nature and green space.
The UK already has many of the foundations required: experienced practitioners, land managers, scientific expertise, regional partnerships, emerging markets and growing business demand for investment in nature.
Significant work is also underway across the country to identify priorities for conservation, connectivity and land use, supported by a wide range of agencies, partnerships, mapping tools and frameworks. This diversity reflects innovation, ambition and deep local knowledge.
What has been missing is a unifying national framework capable of connecting these efforts into a coherent strategic endeavour at the scale required. The SNN is intended to provide that shared framework: enabling public funding and private investment to align around a common spatial vision, and supporting nature to be planned, financed and maintained as critical national infrastructure.
This is not about replacing existing work, but connecting and strengthening it — creating the conditions to scale from fragmented projects to coordinated, long-term delivery.
If the UK is serious about resilience, productivity, health, economic stability and future prosperity, then investing in the natural systems that underpin them can no longer be treated as optional. It must become a core national priority.
