The UK Biodiversity Action Plan: Highlights from the 2008 Reporting Round 2010

Abstract

The UK BAP 2008 report contains the fourth update on progress to conserve the species and habitats identified as requiring priority action under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP). To allow comparison with the previous reporting round in 2005, this report examines the 45 habitats and 475 species (covered by 391 Species Action Plans) that were on the UK list prior to the Species and Habitats review, completed in 2007. The full highlights report can be viewed here.

The main results include:

• Biodiversity Action Plan partnerships at UK and local levels continue to deliver gains for some priority species and habitats, with the rate of decline slowing and in some cases halted or reversed. Nevertheless there is a lot more to do.
• Eight priority habitats (18%) and 40 priority species (11%) were increasing or probably increasing.
• Nine priority habitats (20%) and 144 priority species (39%) were stable or probably stable.
• Nineteen priority habitats (42%) and 88 priority species (24%) were declining or probably declining but the rate of decline is slowing for nine habitats (20%) and 28 species (8%).
• Eight species were reported to have been lost since the publication of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan in 1994 and 11 were thought to have been lost before this date.
• The state of our knowledge of the conservation requirements for priority habitats and species was reported as increased compared with 2002, but gaps still existed in our monitoring. Beyond 2010, the main gaps were identified as likely to be for marine, coastal and grassland habitats and for groups of invertebrates and plants.
• Progress on targets was mixed. For those aimed at maintaining biodiversity (the timescale for these is 2010), 52% of species targets were met and 17% were not achieved, whilst on habitats, 26% were met and 30% were not achieved. The remainder were either not known or not reported. For targets aimed at making improvements, progress was behind schedule on the majority, but for some species, such as the Ladybird spider, Large Blue butterfly and Bittern, the progress was impressive.
• Habitat loss/degradation (particularly owing to agriculture, changes in management practice or infrastructure development) and global warming continued to be the key threats reported for the highest proportion of priority species and habitats.

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