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New report reveals drought is now considered the biggest risk to UK nature reserves

West scrape at Potteric Carr dried up (c) Jim Horsfall

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 take bold action to help nature adapt to climate change

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.

Adaptation work is being undertaken across The Wildlife Trusts’ nature reserves to re-connect and regenerate habitats to help nature cope with weather extremes. Peatlands, grasslands, woodlands, freshwater, marine and coastal areas are being restored, and in some cases re-invented, to support species at risk such as curlew, through severe weather. For example:

  • The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire has boosted fenland resilience through its acquisition of Speechly’s Farm. 134 ha of former degraded farmland now connects Holme Fen and Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserves, increasing the peatland restored in the Great Fen to 1,900 ha. Effect: improved connectivity and the habitat will retain more carbon stores in times of drought
  • Norfolk Wildlife Trust has been working with the Environment Agency to adapt Cley and Salthouse Marshes. They have rejuvenated reedbeds and moved a section of the ‘New Cut’ flood drain to evacuate flood water more effectively and help the marshes maintain freshwater coastal habitats
  • Somerset Wildlife Trust is piloting its “Act to Adapt” process, which supports communities to co-create Climate Adaptation Plans. Building on their Climate Adaptation Toolkit, Somerset Wildlife Trust is now supporting communities to identify potential solutions to their climate challenges such as increased rainfall and extreme heat.
  • Manx Wildlife Trust has planted 8,000 trees to create a new temperate rainforest at Creg y Cowin and they are planning to plant a further 27,000 over the next four years.  Effect: as the canopy closes this will create a cool, damp refuge for animals away from extreme temperatures benefitting birds such as pied flycatcher and wood warbler

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.

Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Chair of the Adaptation Committee, says:

“My Committee has provided advice to Government on the criticality of adaptation reporting for many years, including on the need to invite more organisations to report and aligning reporting cycles with the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment. Both of these recommendations are now being acted on. We’re delighted to see The Wildlife Trusts’ adaptation report published today which marks the first submission in this new, fourth cycle of reporting that will feed into the next climate change risk assessment. This is the first time The Wildlife Trusts have been invited to report as a major landowner and nature organisation; and we hope to see many more such organisations coming forward in the future.”

Early Oat Fields, Haregill Lodge Farm, Ellingstring, North Yorkshire - Paul Harris/2020VISION

Embracing Nature: Climate change adaptation at The Wildlife Trusts

Read the report

Editor's notes

Case studies of habitat improvement to assist adaptation to climate change

  • Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust has spent decades restoring grassland habitats to support and improve the resilience of rare species. In 2023 it recorded the highest ever number of glow worms at Whitecross Green Wood nature reserve near Bicester.
  • Research by the University of Cambridge, in partnership with The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire showed that butterfly species are using the shady butterfly banks at nature reserves to cool their body temperature when air temperatures exceed 35°C.
  • Ulster Wildlife and Belfast Harbour have created an oyster nursery with around 700 native oysters suspended in cages to help restore oyster reefs in Belfast Lough. 
  • Multiple Trusts – Essex, Hampshire & Isle of Wight, North Wales, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cornwall – are helping to restore seagrass meadows through surveys and planting. 
  • The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside collected and planted unwanted Christmas trees in front of the Fylde sand dunes, resulting in a 90m increase in dune width in 2023 – in collaboration with local councils, funded by the Environment Agency.
  • Herefordshire and Radnorshire Wildlife Trusts’ Wye Adapt to Climate Change (WACC) programme aims to build resilience across the wider Wye catchment. The WACC programme works with landowners to identify nature-based solutions covering everything from natural flood management to improved soil health to carbon sequestration. The Trust’s officers are working with landowners to identify opportunities and funding opportunities.  

Methodology

Embracing Nature, climate change adaptation at The Wildlife Trusts sets out an updated assessment of climate risk and actions on adapting to climate change for The Wildlife Trusts. In keeping with reporting requirements under the Climate Change Act, the report assesses how climate change is directly affecting our own charities – the federation of Wildlife Trusts. The report examines how climate change is impacting our land holdings and the wildlife that depends on them, as well as the risks to buildings and our staff. The report also sets out the adaptation actions we are taking and will take to improve our federation’s collective resilience to the changing climate. The Wildlife Trusts' total estate amounts to around 100,000 hectares, equivalent to just under 400 square miles. 

Findings

We have undertaken a high-level assessment of changing hazards for our nature reserves which shows that, under a future warming trajectory that reaches 2°C warming by 2100: 

  • 43% of reserves would have more than 30 days of extreme wildfire risk per year in the 2050s, rising to 48% in the 2080s.
  • 75% of reserves would see an increase in extreme summer temperatures of more than 1.5°C in the 2050s, rising to 85% in the 2080s.
  • 57% of reserves would experience drops in river flows of more than 30% at times of low flows.
  • All reserves would sit within a +10% to -10% change in river flood magnitude.

Climate records broken

Over the past 12 months, global climate record after record has been broken on both land and sea. The world has exceeded 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial temperatures for a full year for the first time. 

Accompanying reports

  • The Wildlife Trusts aim to reach net zero by 2030 – see climate position statement here
  • The Wildlife Trusts’ emissions accounts and carbon reduction strategies are here
  • The Wildlife Trusts’ first 2022 climate adaptation report, Changing Nature, is here 

The Wildlife Trusts

The Wildlife Trusts are making the world wilder and helping to ensure that nature is part of everyone’s lives. We are a grassroots movement of 46 charities with more than 900,000 members and 38,000 volunteers. No matter where you are in Britain, there is a Wildlife Trust inspiring people and saving, protecting and standing up for the natural world. With the support of our members, we care for and restore special places for nature on land and run marine conservation projects and collect vital data on the state of our seas. Every Wildlife Trust works within its local community to inspire people to create a wilder future – from advising thousands of landowners on how to manage their land to benefit wildlife, to connecting hundreds of thousands of school children with nature every year. www.wildlifetrusts.org 

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