PLEASE NOTE: This page is no longer being updated and the documents have now been archived. Please visit the Habitats and species of principal importance in England page on GOV.UK for the latest data on priority species and habitats.
In England many of our rarest and most threatened species are listed under Section 41 (S41) of the 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act. Outcome 3 of the Government’s Biodiversity 2020 strategy contains an ambition to ensure that ’By 2020, we will see an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and will have prevented further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species.’ Protecting and enhancing England’s S41 species is key to delivering this outcome.
To help achieve this a wide-range of expert ecologists were asked by the Biodiversity 2020 Terrestrial Biodiversity Group to identify what needs to be done for these S41 species to recover. These experts considered all of the S41 species found in England and identified the actions they believe are needed for their recovery. These actions were categorised and prioritised by these experts.
The findings of these experts are set out in the attached spreadsheet. There is also a separate pdf explanatory document to help navigate and interpret the information contained within the spreadsheet.
The actions identified by the expert taxonomic groups are what they consider as necessary to support the recovery of England’s s41 species and the achievement of Outcome 3 of the Government’s Biodiversity 2020 strategy. The members of the Terrestrial Biodiversity Group have endorsed these findings and are incorporating these actions into their own delivery and would encourage others with an ability to do so to do the same.
PLEASE NOTE – the actions highlighted represent the considered view of species experts from a range of organisations. They do not replace or necessarily reflect any existing Government policy nor that of its agencies.