National parks are failing to tackle the biodiversity crisis, with just 6% of national park land in England and Wales managed effectively for nature, according to the first full assessment of how well they are supporting nature recovery.
National parks, which cover 10% of England and 20% of Wales and this year celebrate their 75th anniversary, are not restoring nature because of a chronic lack of government funding and because they were designed for a different era, according to the report by the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) charity.
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Ruth Bradshaw, the policy manager for the CNP, said: “National parks are special places and they are the last refuges for struggling species like curlew, hen harrier and cuckoo.
Nature in the national parks isn’t immune from the crisis that is happening elsewhere but there are huge opportunities to bring it back to good health.
We need urgent action and major changes – the government needs to strengthen legislation and significantly increase the resources that are going into nature recovery in the national parks.”
It wants a ban on all burning of moorlands within national parks, a common practice on shooting estates; a ban on all forestry plantations on any depth of peat soil, a practice which can degrade peatlands and cause more carbon emissions; and the licensing of driven grouse shoots to reduce the illegal persecution of threatened species such as hen harrier.
The Yorkshire Dales is facing a £4m hole for 2025-26 and some parks have warned they will need to close visitor centres or cut back on footpath management, reducing public access.
We don’t have the legal powers to do a lot around nature and yet as place-based organisations with a rich range of relationships built with landowners over decades, we’re best-placed to lead the way.
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