The inaugural State of Nature report, is the first of its kind to document the status and population trends of animals and plants in the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories.
The report reviews the state of nature in eight major habitat types in the UK. It also gives brief overviews of the major reasons for change in our wildlife, weighs up the gains and losses of species over the last few decades, and highlights the role of volunteers in providing the monitoring that underpins the report, and conservation in the UK as a whole.
Short case studies throughout the report give extra insight into individual species, sites, conservation issues and recovery projects. You can find more information on data and further reading on the state of the UK’s nature on the RSPB website
You can download the Report here and the information below gives a very brief overview of some of the content of particular interest to the NBN in relation to data, volunteers and the future for recording.
The aim The aim of the report is to produce an authoritative assessment of the changing fortunes of nature in the UK by focusing on the building blocks of our ecosystems – species. It has looked across the UK’s major habitat types and taxonomic groups, and attempted to reflect the situation across the UK’s four constituent countries. It has also tried to highlight the wealth of globally important wildlife found in the UK Overseas Territories.
It attempts to summarise the best available information in order to come to a conclusion. It weighs up the pluses and minuses to give an objective overview of how wildlife is doing in the UK. It does, however, mention that there were constraints with the availability of reliable data and as a result the limitations of the conclusions drawn from this overview must be accpeted. It hopes however, that this is a step in the right direction, towards a more complete understanding of the state of our nature.
Working together Produced by a coalition of conservation and research organisations (including the NBN and many NBN partners and members), the report draws on the very latest information available. A wide range of people and partner organisations have contributed, each bringing with them expertise on particular groups of animals and plants.
“Never before has information been brought together in this way to provide a powerful and unique insight into the state of nature, and how it is changing”.
It states that there is much to be proud of in terms of conservation success stories. As we know, we have a fantastic range of volunteer and professional expertise covering an array of species, and some of the most impressive citizen science projects in the world producing high-quality data to inform conservation.
The knowledge gap It is hoped that this report will inspire greater interest, curiosity and admiration of nature. “A recurring theme is that, despite a rich resource of data collected over recent decades, and the existence of databases holding millions of wildlife records, we are unable to assess population trends for more than a small percentage of species. Birds, butterflies and mammals often steal the limelight, while the many thousands of invertebrates, fungi, lichens and mosses that make up so much of the UK’s biodiversity receive less attention. Work is currently underway to improve the situation by increasing the quality and quantity of species monitoring and recording schemes, however current initiatives are not sufficient to fully redress these imbalances”.
Extract taken from the Unsung Heroes of Conservation section (pg 75)
“As this report demonstrates, the biodiversity of the UK is changing rapidly. What few people realise is that we owe
most of our knowledge of these changes to amateur wildlife recorders(1). These “citizen scientists” range from the most
expert entomologists to those recording the comings and goings of their garden birds. What ties them together is simply that they record what they see and send these records off to be used. Another important group of volunteers then gets down to work checking and collating these records, either through a network of Local Record Centres or through local and national recording schemes and societies. The observations are combined into larger and larger databases, totalling hundreds of millions of records; many, including some that underpin the analyses of trends in this report, are available through the National Biodiversity Network at www.nbn.org.uk. This information can then be analysed for patterns and trends, which tell us about the state of the UK for wildlife(2)”
(1) Roy HE, et al. (2012) Understanding citizen science and environmental monitoring: final report. NERC, Centre for
Ecology & Hydrology and Natural History Museum, on behalf of UK-EOF, London
(2) Tweddle JC, et al. (2012) Guide to citizen science: developing, implementing and evaluating citizen science to study
biodiversity and the environment in the UK. Natural History Museum and NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology for UK-EOF, London