Cumbria Local Nature Recovery Strategy

Local Habitat Map

The main purpose of the LNRS is to:

  • identify our priorities for nature recovery
  • identify our potential measures that would help meet these priorities
  • map the locations where delivering these potential measures would make a particular contribution to achieving those priorities and would be most likely to provide the greatest benefit for biodiversity and the wider environment

The Statement of Biodiversity Priorities and the Local Habitat Map should be used together to inform decision-making. They identify the actions and locations where targeting of resources and effort will have the greatest benefit and encourage collaboration. 

The Local Habitat Map identifies zones within which opportunities for nature recovery are strategically significant at a landscape scale. It does not operate at a field scale resolution, but it can show how nature recovery on your land fits into the wider landscape.

The Local Habitat Map does not mandate any requirement to implement the identified potential measures. Any nature recovery projects should be informed by detailed site-specific feasibility studies and be in line with our principles for nature recovery.

View the Local Habitat Map

Local Habitat Map User Guide (PDF , 1 MB)

Background to the Local Habitat Map

Nature recovery networks

To identify where to target our efforts for nature recovery, we must first understand what habitats we have in Cumbria. The Cumbria Biodiversity Data Centre carried out a review of new and existing habitat data, from both local and national sources, to gather as much information as possible. This information helped create the Cumbria Habitat Base Map. This was then used with the Natural England Habitat Network Model to create local nature recovery networks that show where we could improve, restore, or create specific habitats.  

The local nature recovery networks are grouped by each broad habitat theme:

  • woodland, trees, and scrub
  • moorland, heathland, and montane
  • grassland and limestone pavement
  • wetland and freshwater
  • coastal and estuarine
  • built environment

These networks show the existing wildlife-rich habitats for each theme, along with the opportunities for restoration or creation of these. The maps are available to view online, and the data can also be downloaded as a shapefile to be used in GIS software. Each local nature recovery network contains three categories: enhance, restore, and create. 

Enhance 

This includes the improvement of existing wildlife-rich habitats (e.g. upland hay meadow) to give better condition or distinctiveness of habitat. These areas form the core of the habitat networks model and actions to enhance these will make our wildlife-rich habitats better.

Restore 

This applies to degraded or fragmented habitats that are not currently classed as wildlife-rich. Associated potential measures would result in improving their condition or distinctiveness to make them wildlife-rich where the broad habitat type would stay the same (e.g. modified grassland being transformed into hay meadow). Actions in these areas would make these habitats bigger, better (depending on their location), and more joined up.

Create 

This is on land that could be suitable for the creation of wildlife-rich habitat and would result in a broad change in habitat type (e.g. modified grassland being transformed into broadleaved woodland). This will make our existing wildlife-rich habitats bigger and more joined up. 

‘Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity’ and ‘Areas that Could Become of Particular Importance’

The Local Habitat Map can be divided into three parts:

  • ·‘Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity’
  • ‘Areas that Could Become of Particular Importance’
  • areas outside of the nature recovery network

Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity

These are made up of sites that are already protected under planning policy for their biodiversity value and include:

  • all statutorily designated nature conservation sites (SPAs, SACs, Ramsar sites SSSIs, NNRs, LNRs, LPOs and HPMAs)
  • County Wildlife Sites
  • irreplaceable habitats

Areas that Could Become of Particular Importance

The parts of the nature recovery networks that fall outside of the Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity are classified as Areas that Could Become of Particular Importance.

Areas outside of the nature recovery network

Some areas won’t fall within a strategic network and therefore won’t have measures shown on the map. Everywhere is important for nature recovery. A lot can still be done for nature recovery in these areas, including many of the unmapped potential measures. Over 70% of potential measures in the strategy are unmapped. This is because they are beneficial almost anywhere, or because of insufficient information to map specific locations for a potential measure. 

Similarly, if a measure isn’t mapped in a certain area, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t suitable. It just means that it isn’t the most strategically important location for that measure to take place for the purpose of the nature recovery network. These areas can still be used to deliver mapped potential measures if site surveys determine them to be a suitable location. 

What if there is more than one mapped measure for my area of interest?

Where an area of land is suitable for more than one potential measure, the Local Habitat Map will show multiple overlapping potential measures. Prioritising which measure should take place should be decided on a site-by-site basis, after considering wider benefits, funding, site surveys, viability, and specialist advice. 

The following factors, in no particular order, should be considered when prioritising potential measures:

  • does it contribute towards climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration?
  • does it contribute towards climate change adaption and resilience?
  • does it help to improve water quality in our rivers and lakes?
  • is it a particularly strategic location for delivering natural flood management?
  • does it mitigate or provide resilience against coastal erosion?
  • does it help to improve air quality around sensitive receptors?
  • does it enhance or reinforce our natural and cultural heritage?
  • is it particularly strategic for increasing people’s access to nature?
  • does it provide particular benefit to people’s health and wellbeing?
  • is there a particular opportunity to engage or educate people in nature recovery?
  • is there a potential link to green finance or other economic opportunities?
  • is there already funding in place for a particular measure?
  • is there an existing project or interest group that would deliver the measure?
  • is there landowner/land manager preference or particular interest in delivering the measure?
  • is the delivery of the measure limited to specific localised conditions or areas, for which the proposed location is particularly viable?

Additional datasets that show where a potential measure may provide a particular contribution to wider benefits have been added to the mapping portal under ‘Additional non-statutory information’. These can be overlaid with the Local Habitat Map to identify locations where implementing potential measures could yield wider environmental and societal benefits as well as benefits for nature. While these additional datasets reflect the most up-to-date information available, they are subject to future updates. Therefore, it is crucial to use this overlay functionality with a level of discretion. Always complement it with site-specific surveys and adhere to guiding principles (pages 16-18) for reliable on-the-ground evaluations to inform decision-making.

Review and update

The Local Habitat Map is hosted by Cumbria Biodiversity Centre on behalf of Westmorland and Furness Council. It will be reviewed and updated every 3 to 10 years as per the statutory guidance for the LNRS. 

The Local Habitat Map is only as good as the data it is made from. A key limitation identified during the development of this LNRS is the lack of local data. Cumbria Biodiversity Data Centre provides a hub for storing and sharing any such data with relevant organisations and businesses. It also uses the data to further develop the Cumbria biodiversity evidence base, and subsequent versions of the Local Habitat Map. We encourage anyone who is collecting habitat or species data in Cumbria to share it with Cumbria Biodiversity Data Centre. Adding it to their database will improve our understanding of the state of nature and inform future monitoring of nature recovery action in our county.