The world’s and England’s natural environment is under tremendous pressure. Human development is threatening the resources and services which nature, through its habitats and its wildlife, provides. This has considerable economic, as well as environmental costs. However, it is possible for policymakers and communities to reverse this decline, harnessing economic growth to avoid environmental degradation.

This report examines natural environment policy in England, and the UK’s international contribution to protecting important habitats and biodiversity. It recommends policy measures to not just halt the decline in the state of the natural environment, but to restore and improve it. It examines market-based mechanisms such as biodiversity offsetting and conservation auctions and establishes to what extent they can help us reverse the decline in our important biodiversity over the past 60 years.

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