Oxfordshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) map - phase 2

Oxfordshire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy

The Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are a set of new national strategies designed to target priority actions that help nature in locations where they are most needed. Local Nature Recovery Strategies are expected to help join up national efforts to reverse the decline of biodiversity. (Defra 2023).

“Biodiversity” is a term that refers to the variety of all life, including plants, animals, fungi, and micro-organisms. A stable and healthy variety of species provides us with everything necessary for survival, from fresh water, clean air, and climate regulation to food and medicines and much more. These benefits do not come from individual species but from a rich variety of species working together.

Across England, 48 of these strategies are currently being created and one of those 48 areas is Oxfordshire. The goal from this strategy is to identify the most important shared outcomes for biodiversity across Oxfordshire and indicate how/where we could take actions to achieve these outcomes.

If you already have digitised mapped data

If you already have data files that map 'polygons' (shapes that relate to particular mapped areas) then you can email this to local nature recovery strategy: localnaturerecoverystrategy@oxfordshire.gov.uk with 'Spatial Data File' in the subject line. These files should be about priority areas to restore, create, or improve habitats in Oxfordshire in the future (and/or should show us where you have already done this). The mapping tool (below) on this page is for those who do not yet have project plans in a geospatial format to tell us about their plans or willingness to complete habitat projects that we may not yet know about.

Tell us about your habitat projects on our map

We expect local nature recovery strategies to propose actions such as the:

• creation of wetlands, ponds, and backwaters
• restoration of fens, reedbeds, or similarly rare habitats
• planting of trees and hedgerows
• more sustainable management of existing woodlands and other habitats like grasslands

These actions are intended to help nature itself and to also help improve the wider natural environment, and we want to know whether people and organisations are currently planning to take these types of actions within Oxfordshire.

Please the map below to tell us if you:

1. Have completed habitat work before 2025.

2. Are planning on completing habitat work from 2025 - 2035

3. Are willing to complete habitat work on your land during 2025 - 2035 but no plans of what do to yet.

By 'habitat work' we mean, any actions to create, improve, or restore habitats (space specifically intended to support a variety of animals, plants, fungi, and or soil microorganisms). You can tell us whether you have/will have created new habitat, improved an existing habitat, or restored a habitat (brought back a habitat which used to be there).

Because this tool is at looking at how best to connect up habitats to make them bigger, better, or more joined up in Oxfordshire, we are mostly looking for areas of habitat creation which are over 0.5 hectares in size (half a football field or more). Therefore, this tool isn’t likely to be a suitable place to record garden level activities. There are other organisations who can supply us with information about what people are doing in their gardens (e.g. Swift Map).

More information

To see more about how habitats are classified you can access documents at UK Habs: Register – ukhab.

This tool is within phase 2 of the LNRS. (See further phases in ‘Lifecycle’ section on this page.)

In phase 1, we asked a people about their priorities for nature (through workshops and surveys) and people also told us about actions that they are planning to take: letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/lnrs-phase1

More information about the Local Nature Recovery Strategy can be found under the ‘Documents’ section on this page and on our webpage.

You can read the State of Nature in Oxfordshire 2017 report, created by Wild Oxfordshire, which summarises the changes in animals, wildlife, areas of nature and how land has been used in Oxfordshire.

You can also find links to videos on our webpage which introduce the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS), if you would like to hear more about it before you start the survey.

Data
The collected information will be shared with Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre (TVERC) to be used alongside the geospatial data submitted by other organisations to create a data layer that combines the understanding of current and likely future habitat connectivity by understanding willingness/planned future actions.