With plans now moving towards delivery, farmers have a vital role to play in ensuring nature recovery works on the ground. Find out what LNRS mean for your farm and share your views through our short survey at the end.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) bring together local communities, land managers and organisations across England to identify and coordinate actions that will help nature recover and thrive. England has been divided into 48 LNRS areas, generally aligned with county boundaries, each managed by a designated Responsible Authority (RA), such as a local county council.
Each strategy must meet a series of minimum requirements, such as identifying key environmental issues and highlighting which actions, and where, will be most effective in improving biodiversity and creating new habitats. However, each strategy is also tailored specifically to the local area and its environmental priorities.
Although the actions proposed in LNRS strategies are not legally binding, the strategies are intended to help the Government meet its legally binding environmental and carbon emissions reduction targets. As farmers, you manage the vast majority of rural land in England and you will be essential partners in delivering nature recovery on the ground. Examples of actions that could be carried out as part of LNRS delivery include tree planting, creating nature-based flood prevention systems such as scrapes and leaky dams, or restoring peatland to increase carbon sequestration.
What next?
With most LNRS now published, the focus is shifting to on-the-ground delivery, with the Land Use Framework expected to help balance environmental targets with food production and local development. Meanwhile, English devolution gives Responsible Authorities a key role in driving forward local environmental action and coordinating funding.
On 30 September 2026, Secretary of State Angela Eagle announced a further £26 million in funding for Mayors and Responsible Authorities to help deliver LNRS programmes and support nature recovery and climate change adaptation in their local areas. This funding will be split across all 48 LNRS areas, amounting to approximately £185,000 per authority .
Here’s what Responsible Authorities are expected to focus on:
Bringing everyone together: Setting up and leading Local Nature Partnerships (LNPs)
Making LNRS count locally: Ensuring nature recover priorities highlighted in the strategies actually influence local planning decisions and council work.
Getting environmental delivery projects off the ground: Identifying and developing practical projects that work alongside local farming needs.
Keeping track: Gathering data on what’s working on the ground and sharing it with Defra.
NFFN’s view on the new strategies
On paper, LNRS offer a fantastic opportunity to build a connected patchwork of healthy, thriving habitats across the country, helping to meet our climate targets while directing key funding towards farmers delivering these results on the ground.
But as with any major policy shift, the devil will be firmly in the detail. To make a genuine difference on the ground, these strategies must be rooted in practical farming realities, backed by proper, long-term funding, and developed and delivered alongside the farmers and land managers who know the ground best, otherwise, they risk becoming just another exercise on paper.
