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Biodiversity Action Plan

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A Biodiversity Action Plan is a national plan that describes a country's biological resources, meaning its living things and their habitats, and sets out detailed plans for conserving them. The United Kingdom was the first country to produce one, the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP).[1] The United Kingdom published it in 1994 as its response to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which the UK had signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.[2]

Action plans

The UK BAP was a series of plans for the recovery of threatened species and habitats. The first plans were published in 1995, and more followed in 1998 and 1999.[3][4] A 2009 study reported that there were by then 391 Species Action Plans, 45 Habitat Action Plans and 185 Local Biodiversity Action Plans.[5]

Priority species and habitats

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), which advises the UK government on nature conservation, explains that UK BAP priority species and habitats were those identified as the most threatened and in need of conservation action under the plan. Being on these lists was a conservation priority. It was not a measure of extinction risk like the IUCN Red List.[6] The first lists were drawn up between 1995 and 1999. After a two-year review that ended in 2007, the number of priority species rose from fewer than 600 to 1,150, and the number of priority habitats from 49 to 65.[7] The review report noted that the list did not rank species by degree of priority. Species were simply either included or not.[8]

Evaluation

In 2009 a team of researchers writing in the journal Biological Conservation studied how cost-effective the Species Action Plans had been. They found that spending was strongly weighted towards vertebrates, and that plans for other animals and plants tended to be more efficient.[9] Among the plans they could assess, the average success at meeting targets was relatively high, at 78%.[10]

What came after

In July 2012 the UK BAP was succeeded by the "UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework", and much of the work moved to the separate countries of the UK.[11] That framework was itself replaced by a new UK Biodiversity Framework in 2024.[12] The UK BAP priority lists are still used as reference sources. They helped to draw up the legal lists of priority species and habitats in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, such as those under Section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 in England.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "UK BAP". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The UK was the first country to produce a national biodiversity action plan. The UK BAP described the biological resources of the UK and provided detailed plans for conservation of these resources.
  2. ↑ "UK BAP". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP) was published in 1994, and was the UK Government's response to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which the UK signed up to in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro
  3. ↑ Laycock, Helen; Moran, Dominic; Smart, James; Raffaelli, David; White, Piran (December 2009). "Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation: The UK Biodiversity Action Plan". Biological Conservation. Retrieved 20 October 2026. In 1994, in response to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UK Government launched the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) – a series of plans for the recovery of threatened species and habitats
  4. ↑ Laycock, Helen; Moran, Dominic; Smart, James; Raffaelli, David; White, Piran (December 2009). "Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation: The UK Biodiversity Action Plan". Biological Conservation. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The first plans were published in 1995 and another batch followed in 1998/1999
  5. ↑ Laycock, Helen; Moran, Dominic; Smart, James; Raffaelli, David; White, Piran (December 2009). "Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation: The UK Biodiversity Action Plan". Biological Conservation. Retrieved 20 October 2026. there were 391 Species Action Plans (SAPs), 11 of which were grouped due to similar conservation requirements of the individual species, 45 Habitat Action Plans (HAPs), and 185 Local Biodiversity Action Plans
  6. ↑ "UK BAP". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. UK BAP priority species and habitats were those that were identified as being the most threatened and requiring conservation action under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP).
  7. ↑ "UK BAP". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. Following the review, the number of priority species increased from less than 600 to 1,150, and the number of priority habitats increased from 49 to 65.
  8. ↑ Report on the Species and Habitat Review (PDF) (Report). Joint Nature Conservation Committee. 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The list does not identify degrees of priority
  9. ↑ Laycock, Helen; Moran, Dominic; Smart, James; Raffaelli, David; White, Piran (December 2009). "Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation: The UK Biodiversity Action Plan". Biological Conservation. Retrieved 20 October 2026. the distribution of spending across plans was highly biased towards vertebrates and there was no correlation between cost and effectiveness. Non-vertebrate plans tended to be more efficient than vertebrate plans.
  10. ↑ Laycock, Helen; Moran, Dominic; Smart, James; Raffaelli, David; White, Piran (December 2009). "Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of conservation: The UK Biodiversity Action Plan". Biological Conservation. Retrieved 20 October 2026. the mean Total Effectiveness of all the SAPs studied at meeting their targets is relatively high (78%)
  11. ↑ "UK BAP". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. much of the work previously carried out under the UK BAP is now focussed at a country level
  12. ↑ "UK BAP". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The 2024 UK Biodiversity Framework replaces the ' UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework', published in July 2012, which itself succeeded the UK BAP
  13. ↑ "UK BAP Priority Habitats". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 20 October 2026. has been used to help draw up statutory lists of priority habitats in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as required under Section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act 2006 (England)
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