Market implementation locally
The current situation:
- The current private finance mechanisms supporting nature restoration in the New Forest National Park are Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), nutrient neutrality requirements and the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC).
| Ecosystem services definition: These may include provisioning services such as grain, timber or fuel, alongside regulating and maintenance ecosystem services: nutrient management, flood risk reduction or carbon sequestration. |
- There is a risk that these ecosystem service markets won’t always deliver the nature restoration required appropriate to our landscape. We therefore encourage land managers to get in touch and seek guidance on the kinds of nature restoration that could benefit our landscape, and ensure proposed land use changes that could adversely impact local stakeholders (eg. commoners’ back-up grazing land) are guarded against.
- Existing markets tend to favour larger land holdings that can create significant uplift in ecosystem services. For smaller landholdings it could be beneficial to have a platform where multiple smaller project sites could be aggregated, and financing and buyers could be secured for the collective area. If as a smaller landholding you would be interested in how this might work, please get in touch (see below).
- Maintaining habitat connectivity is key to building nature’s resilience and tackling the nature and climate emergency. A map below of the relative importance of patches of existing woodland habitat for movement of biodiversity in the New Forest National Park is a useful tool for demonstrating where ecosystem services are already being generated in the National Park.
- To access the nitrate offsetting market land must either be an input source of the nutrients (such as applying fertilisers), or in a strategic location for the removal of nutrients from a watercourse (eg. via the creation of wetlands). This map below demonstrates nutrient run off levels throughout the New Forest National Park and indicates the areas of strategic significance to the nitrate offsetting market.
- To access BNG credits, the biodiversity created must be additional – BNG measures should be over and above those put in to address other policy or legislative requirements on a specific parcel of land; ensuring that landowners produce a benefit that would not have happened otherwise. This map below shows areas in the National Park under statutory protection for nature demonstrates where it would not be possible to access BNG credits:
Get in touch
- If you’d like to discuss opportunities for accessing ecosystem services markets, contact Olivia McGregor olivia.mcgregor@newforestnpa.gov.uk
- If you’d like to receive updates on developments regarding emerging carbon codes (ie. mechanisms that enable income to be derived from activities resulting in carbon sequestration), please sign up to the New Forest Land Advice Service email newsletter.
