The first National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) were designated in the 1950s and various reviews over the past 20 years have recommended improving evidence gathering and monitoring within these ‘protected landscapes’.
The ‘Framework for Monitoring Environmental Outcomes in Protected Landscapes’ project has addressed this by developing a national framework for monitoring environmental outcomes in National Parks and AONBs. Natural England has led the work in close partnership with Defra, the English National Park Authorities Association (ENPAA), English Heritage and the National Association for AONBs (NAAONB).
This report explains the background to the work, the process followed to create the framework, its main outputs and potential next steps.