Advertisement

England's nature reserves are becoming overgrown and unloved because of lack of government funding, head of Natural England warns

Tony Juniper has asked for more funding - www.alamy.com
Tony Juniper has asked for more funding - www.alamy.com

England's nature reserves are becoming overgrown and unloved because of a lack of government funding, the head of Natural England has said.

Tony Juniper, who assumed the role earlier this year, tweeted photographs from his visits to National Nature Reserves over the weekend, which show ivy climbing over signs which haven't been updated in over a decade.

He tweeted: "A quick visit to Bedford Purlieus National Nature Reserve en route back from The Birdfair.

"What a treasure. We need to invest more into such places & come up with more ambitious plans for reconnecting ancient woodland fragments, as could be done in this landscape."

The signs in the picture say the reserve is managed by two organisations which ceased to exist at least 13 years ago.

Nature campaigner Miles King replied: "The sign is a good indicator for how long England's NNRs have been starved of resources. Neither organisation on it (English Nature 1990-2005 and Forest Enterprise 1996-2003) has existed for at least 13 years."

Mr Juniper agreed, replying: "Yes. Here’s another picture that tells a similar story. We need to invest more as a nation into our NNRs, the jewels in the crown of England’s Nature. I & Natural England colleagues will be making the case for more resources to undertake that and other vital basic functions."

The head of Natural England has been campaigning for more resources to go into nature, and he spoke of this at an event with Carrie Symonds, the partner of Boris Johnson, at the Bird Fair on Friday.

He suggested "rewilding" the greenbelt, explaining: "There is a really powerful agenda now linked to public health, that I think we can use to encourage more greening of cities and greening the edge of cities… We have a massive pile of data that one of the ways you can reduce the rise of [in-activity] trends is by facilitating access to the environment.

"So, we’ve got a fantastic economic and business case which is about reconnecting people with nature, about public health… One policy I would like us to think about is rewilding greenbelts, so the bits right next to the cities."

There are currently 224  NNRs  in England with a total area of over 94,400 hectares, and Natural England manages about two-thirds of these.

The remaining reserves are managed by organisations approved by Natural England, for example, the National Trust, Forestry Commission, RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and local authorities.