6.2. Priorities in the next 5 years

6.2. Priorities in the next 5 years

The priorities of the organisations that were surveyed were wide ranging, demonstrating again that the sector tackles multiple pressures with multiple different interventions.

Interviews highlighted that large or catchment scale demonstration projects, and the gathering of evidence on what interventions worked, were top priorities. Some expressed frustration at case studies and the need to move on with restoration at scale to reap the benefits. While some organisations focus on clean-up activities (e.g. British Canoeing litter collections), most interviewees promoted the need to “go upstream” and tackle pollution problems at source. Those clean-up activities, however, play a big role in raising profile and awareness with the public and politicians.

Questionnaire respondents were asked to select their priorities for the next 5 years from a list of interventions collated during the interviews (Figure 7). Respondents were able to select multiple options. Answers revealed:

• “Nature-based solutions (NbS)” was the most frequently selected priority category in the questionnaire responses across different types of organisations and geographic locations.

They were also frequently raised in the interviews as a priority in the next 5 years. There is clear evidence that freshwater ecosystems will be particularly affected by climate change and some evidence that freshwater solutions that entail working with nature could be effective at reducing flood risk, improving water quality or sequestering carbon and also providing a range of co-benefits (e.g. increase biodiversity). There is now a strong recognition and willingness from policy makers that NbS are a way forward, for example in the National flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England, but there is a reluctance to invest public money without a stronger evidence base for what is going to work where. Besides the clear need for more large-scale empirical research on NbS for freshwaters, highlighted in a recent

British Ecological Society review, there is also a growing recognition that the sector needs training and support in order to deliver at scale. Several respondents said solutions for freshwaters are still focused on hard engineering because there is a gap in training practitioners who can plan and design NbS. To this effect, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust have plans to develop a wetlands school to bring people together with training and resources.

However, concern was raised that NbS might be seen as a panacea. Some felt that while helpful, NbS on their own are not enough to address the most common causes of freshwater biodiversity decline in the UK which include development, diffuse pollution and INNS. • Beyond NbS and the classical “local restorations projects”, priorities for the next 5 years also included “Encouraging land management practices that reduce pressures on freshwaters”,

“Integrating actions at catchment/landscape scale”, and “sharing best practice, success and failures”. UK wide NGOs were more likely than single nation NGOs to identify “influencing policies that sustain freshwaters” and “more efficient monitoring of freshwaters” as priorities.

It is possible that this represents an area that requires more focus in the freshwater sector, given that the environment is a devolved area of policy, with different models for regulation and delivery of water supply and sewerage services between the devolved nations. The number of responses from NGOs outside of England were low, making meaningful comparisons between the nations difficult.