State of Nature 2019 Reports reveal human impacts on wildlife in the UK

Source: National Biodiversity Network website

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The British National Biodiversity Network (NBN) published a series of documents – State of Nature 2019, highlighting links between climate change, nature and sustainability, and revealing how human impacts are driving sweeping changes in wildlife in the UK.

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Collating the best available data on the UK’s biodiversity, the State of Nature 2019 Reports present an overview of how the country’s wildlife is faring. The authors look back over nearly 50 years of monitoring to see how nature has changed in the UK, its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

Produced by a partnership of more than 70 organisations involved in the recording, researching and conservation of nature in the studied area, the report particularly focuses on what has happened in the last decade, and so whether things are getting better or worse for nature.

 By 2020 most targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity won’t be met.

In a complex way, the report assesses the pressures that are acting on nature, and the responses being made, collectively, to counter these pressures.

Key findings

Thanks to new data sets becoming available and the development of new analytical tools, State of Nature 2019 is able to present trends in status for more species than ever before.

Source: State of Nature 2019

Their statistics demonstrate that the abundance and distribution of the UK’s species has, on average, declined since 1970 and many metrics suggest this decline has continued in the most recent decade. There has been no let-up in the net loss of nature in the UK.

41% of species have decreased in abundance.

It should also be noted that prior to 1970, the UK’s wildlife had already been depleted by centuries of persecution, pollution, habitat loss and degradation.

The report concludes that, although progress has been made, the UK will not meet most of the Convention for Biological Diversity’s 2020 Aichi targets.

Download the Reports

Click the images to download the Report and summaries for different countries of the UK. Source: National Biodiversity Network website.

Download the State of Nature 2019 – UK

Download the State of Nature 2019 – Scotland

Download the State of Nature 2019 – A Summary for England

Download the State of Nature 2019 – A Summary for Northern Ireland

Download the State of Nature 2019 – A Summary for Scotland

Download the State of Nature 2019 – A Summary for the UK

Download the State of Nature 2019 – A Summary for Wales

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