Sussex Nature Recovery
A collective blueprint for targeted action
East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove are home to wondrous and iconic wildlife including internationally rare habitats and species. But like the rest of the UK, nature in Sussex urgently needs our help.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies are a new approach to help us do that, and everyone in Sussex can take part.
A collective blueprint for targeted action
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are a statutory requirement from the Environment Act 2021. Their aim is to protect the important places for nature that are left, and identify the opportunities to restore or create it, where it can have the most benefit for wildlife and people.
48 strategies are being prepared at the county level to cover the whole of England. There will be one LNRS for West Sussex and one for East Sussex covering Brighton & Hove.
Residents, community groups, land managers and organisations in Sussex will be invited to create shared priorities for nature’s recovery and identify the actions that can be taken to deliver them. These collaboratively produced blueprints will show where there’s a need and the appetite to recover important habitats and species to target funding, investment and action!
Bluebells in Sussex by Derek Middleton Copyright @Sussex Wildlife Trust
Find your group:
At the heart of every Local Nature Recovery Strategy are the environmental issues that are most important to local people. These will be drawn together with the ecological evidence to establish our collective priorities for nature in Sussex.
If you live in Sussex, or you have a business that works there, or you're a land manager, or represent a community group or organisation that's already active in nature's recovery, find out how you can add get involved.
Why LNRS are needed
Spending time in nature is good for our health and wellbeing. It gives us our food and water, supports jobs and the economy, and provides other things we may take for granted: clean air, clean water, the regulation of our climate, protection from flooding and much more.
But nature desperately needs our help. One in six of our UK species are at risk of extinction. Nearly half of our wildlife has been lost since the 1970s and the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. (State of Nature Report 2023)
Coordination and collaboration are needed at the local level to maximise efforts and agree where and how to act.
How LNRS will be developed in 6 steps
Though every LNRS around the country will be unique to the area it covers, they all follow a process set out by Defra. The key stages are below.
1. Baseline information created 2. Local priorities gathered 3. Priorities Shortlisted 4. Potential measures identified 5. LNRS documents created The next stage will bring everything together into a Statement of Biodiversity Priorities and a Local Habitat Map. The map will add to the existing areas that are important for nature (described in stage 1), to show where future effort should be concentrated to deliver the outcomes and actions identified through the LNRS process. 6. Public consultation, publication and review The draft LNRS documents for the East Sussex, Brighton & Hove, and West Sussex will be shared on this site for feedback, before being published in 2025. The strategies will be reviewed every 3-10 years to assess what actions for nature have been taken since the strategy was last published.
Latest News
Interactive map shows where survey respondents favourite places for nature are
Explore the map to see what survey respondents have told us.
Watch the webinar for envrionmental groups and organisations
An hour-long webinar for community groups and orgs, including Q&A.
Watch the Sussex Parish and Town Council webinar
This briefing on Sussex Nature Recovery includes 30 minutes of Q&As
