The real challenge is turning promises into action
DAERA’s new Nature Recovery Strategy sets out an ambitious framework for protecting and restoring Northern Ireland’s natural environment. But, as James Kilpatrick argues in his response to its launch, we already have environmental laws, policies and objectives. The priority now must be to deliver on them, enforce existing legislation and demonstrate real improvements.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has launched a new Nature Recovery Strategy for Northern Ireland, setting out its approach to reversing the decline in nature and restoring the natural environment.
The strategy focuses on the need to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, protect and restore habitats and species, improve the condition of protected areas and make nature recovery an integral part of how we manage our land, freshwater and wider environment. It recognises the pressures facing nature and the need for coordinated action across government, agriculture, businesses, communities and environmental organisations.
These are important ambitions. Northern Ireland’s natural environment is under considerable pressure, and there is an urgent need for a coherent approach to protecting biodiversity and restoring the ecosystems on which people and wildlife depend.
However, the publication of a new strategy also raises a fundamental question: what will this document achieve that existing legislation, policies and commitments have not?
This is a question worth taking seriously, particularly in light of the response by James Kilpatrick, who challenged the fanfare surrounding the announcement and questioned whether another strategy is really what Northern Ireland needs.
The strategy runs to 2032 and contains five strategic objectives, bringing together actions and targets from existing or developing policies, as well as proposing additional measures. It also supports the international 30 by 30 commitment: effectively conserving and managing 30% of land and inland waters, and 30% of marine and coastal areas, for nature by 2030.
The scale of the challenge is clear from the figures accompanying the launch. Around 9.9% of Northern Ireland’s land area and 38% of its marine waters are currently designated as protected sites. But designation does not necessarily mean that nature is thriving. Some protected areas need substantial ecological improvement before they can genuinely contribute to recovery.
The strategy also recognises that achieving its ambitions will require sustained funding and political support. DAERA proposes a biodiversity finance plan and the establishment of a Nature Recovery Forum to bring together government, businesses, land managers, environmental organisations and communities.
These are important elements, but they also underline the central challenge: turning an agreed framework into measurable improvements in the natural environment.
We already have environmental commitments. Why aren’t they being delivered?
James Kilpatrick’s response to the launch brings this question sharply into focus. He points out that Northern Ireland is not short of environmental laws, policies or people employed to protect the environment. We already have regulations intended to safeguard our rivers, wildlife and habitats. Yet the condition of our natural environment tells a very different story.
The new strategy itself refers to 2024 figures showing that fewer than one in three monitored rivers achieved good or high ecological status. As James observes, these figures are already nearly three years old. Pollution did not stop in 2024, and our waterways have continued to face pressure since then.
Where, then, are the up-to-date figures showing whether things have improved? And if they have not, what has been done about it?
This is not simply a question of better reporting. It is about accountability. Monitoring is essential, but collecting information about environmental decline is of little value unless it leads to effective intervention and action against those responsible for pollution and environmental damage.
Working together, not shifting the blame
James also welcomes some of the practical ideas in the strategy, including improved monitoring, better management of protected areas and support for farmers to work more closely with nature.
However, he rightly emphasises that farmers must be given proper support and realistic opportunities to change their practices. Environmental recovery cannot be achieved by simply imposing more rules and costs on people who are already under pressure, and then making them scapegoats when wider problems remain unresolved.
Farmers have an important role, but responsibility must be shared. Government, regulators, water companies, businesses and communities all have a part to play. Effective nature recovery requires cooperation, adequate investment and the infrastructure to make change possible.
The problem of starting again with every new Minister
Perhaps one of James’s most important observations concerns political continuity.
Andrew Muir will not be Minister for ever, but the environmental problems facing Northern Ireland will not disappear when he leaves office next May. Whoever succeeds him will inherit declining wildlife, damaged habitats, polluted rivers, untreated wastewater discharges, recurring algal blooms and the continuing obligations under the Nutrient Action Programme.
Changing the Minister 100 times will not, in itself, change the condition of our rivers and loughs. The incoming Minister will still be dealing with the same departments, regulators and infrastructure problems.
James warns against a familiar pattern: a new Minister arrives, launches another strategy and announces a renewed commitment to nature recovery, only for us to find ourselves having the same conversation a few years later.
There is a real danger that the publication of another strategy becomes an end in itself, rather than a means of delivering change.
Accountability must come before more promises
There is an important distinction between setting new objectives and achieving the ones already agreed. Before adding further commitments, government needs to demonstrate what has happened to previous targets, which have been achieved, which have not, and why.
Northern Ireland already has an Environmental Improvement Plan, alongside legislation and other strategies designed to address environmental decline. Indeed, the Office for Environmental Protection’s assessment of the Environmental Improvement Plan, published earlier this year, acknowledged that further action is needed to accelerate delivery and strengthen environmental outcomes. Water quality, nutrient pollution and underinvestment in wastewater infrastructure remain significant challenges.
The new Nature Recovery Strategy must therefore be judged not by the ambition of its language or the number of actions it lists, but by whether it makes a measurable difference.
That means:
– Proper enforcement of existing environmental legislation, with consequences when it is breached.
– Transparent, up-to-date monitoring so that progress and continuing failures are visible.
– Clear accountability for government departments and regulatory bodies.
– Investment in wastewater infrastructure and other essential environmental improvements.
– Practical and properly funded support for farmers and land managers.
– Political commitment that extends beyond the tenure of any individual Minister.
The establishment of a Nature Recovery Forum and the proposed biodiversity finance plan could provide useful mechanisms for bringing people together and mobilising resources. But they must lead to tangible results, not simply more meetings and more paperwork.
The publication of the strategy is an opportunity to renew the focus on nature and biodiversity. Its ambitions are necessary and welcome. But James Kilpatrick’s response reminds us that we should not confuse announcing a commitment with fulfilling it.
Northern Ireland does not need another cycle of promises followed by disappointment. It needs the environmental protections already in place to mean something. It needs legislation enforced, previous objectives achieved, investment where it is needed and those responsible for delivery held accountable.
Nature will not recover simply because another document has been published. The real measure of this strategy will be whether, by 2032, our rivers are cleaner, our habitats healthier and our wildlife recovering.
As James argues, at some point somebody has to get on with the job.
Based on the Nature Recovery Strategy for Northern Ireland to 2032, launched by DAERA on 27 October 2026, and the observations and arguments shared by James Kilpatrick in response to its publication.
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/news/muir-launches-strategy-restore-nature