This report is an innovative natural capital account of the National Nature Reserves managed by Natural England.
NNRs protect some of England’s most important habitats, species and geology. They also support research, education and recreation. They cover approximately 0.7% of England’s land surface.
Natural Capital Accounting extends traditional accounting to include non-market benefits provided by the environment, in order to support strategic decision making. To date they have focused on reporting economic values, with ecological and ecosystem service evidence part of the supporting material.
This report innovates in using an extended balance sheet, which displays the state of our assets, services, benefits and their economic value next to each other. This is important because the economic values only capture part of the full value of the assets, and changes in the economic values do not provide sufficient information to manage the assets wisely. The approach taken in this report grounds the accounts in the ecological evidence. It also highlights evidence gaps and confidence intervals to support transparent decision-making.
This work was awarded the 2019 John Hoy Award for the best piece of written economic analysis produced by a government economist or team.
*Please note, a new edition of the report was uploaded on the 2/1/2020 to resolve an error in table 6, page 16.