Oxfordshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)

Oxfordshire is at an exciting and pivotal moment in time as we prepare to help our wildlife flourish and spread across our landscape. The Local Nature Recovery Strategy will have an essential role in guiding Oxfordshire to become a more robust and resilient landscape, ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Amongst many benefits, a quality natural environment provides us with cleaner air, improved water quality, the opportunity to mitigate the effects or climate change, and healthy spaces for our current and future generations. Together, we must protect and improve our natural resources.

Responsible authority

In summer 2023, the government named Oxfordshire County Council as a ‘responsible authority’ to drive nature’s recovery through a Local Nature Recovery Strategy for the county, with Natural England and the District and City councils as ‘supporting authorities’.

Preparing the strategy

We will engage and consult with a wide range of audiences to agree on priority species and habitats for Oxfordshire as well as what actions we need to take to support them. This will give us a set of priorities, developed from consultation with local people, to create a strategy that will protect, enhance, and restore nature. Each of the 48 ‘responsible authorities’ who cover England are asked to publish their Local Nature Recovery Strategies within the next 24 months.

Alongside a statement of biodiversity priorities and the proposed actions to support these species, a key goal of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy is to clearly show which areas of Oxfordshire should be prioritised for different kinds of nature recovery actions. Where possible, we will map these priority areas based on national datasets, local datasets, and the goals from consultations with people who own, manage, use, and regulate Oxfordshire’s land.

This strategy, map, and list of biodiversity priorities intend to support people to take action more decisively knowing that their time and money are predicted to be most effective in certain, highlighted, locations. Our final recommendations for which actions to take will be strongly influenced by wide-ranging consultation with people from the public, private, and voluntary sectors.

Oxfordshire County Council will not be working on this in isolation. Instead, we will build upon past work to develop the strategy with Oxfordshire’s District and City Councils, representatives from community action groups, the Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership, our Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, agricultural businesses, non-governmental organisations, charities like Wild Oxfordshire, our local Wildlife Trust BBOWT, the Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Natural England, the University of Oxford and more.

This webpage will act as the most up-to-date public reference point to hear about Oxfordshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy. 
If you’d like to see more information about Oxfordshire’s nature you can find sections on Wild Oxfordshire’s website.

Get in touch

The Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) - localnaturerecoverystrategy@oxfordshire.gov.uk

The Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership (OLNP) -  localnaturepartnershipoxfordshire@southandvale.gov.uk