Audio recording of session 3 from the NBN Conference 2023
Okay well welcome back everyone uh hope you had a good morning um as someone from London I glad I learned something as a Londoner there are no hippos in Glenn rothus so that’s good don’t go away totally ignorant so we’re in the midst of day of divers snorklers birders bug hunters and a
Managerie of data scientists zoologists biologists ecologists we’re we’re ranging through the centuries and through the Technologies uh and above all we’re hearing about topics in the world of biodiversity data collection and use and that brings us on to the sjn Bernett Memorial lecture 2023 when we’ll be hearing from Natalie prer Who was
Appointed in April 2022 as CEO of the Office of Environmental Protection the oep the new environmental Watchdog that was created under the environment act 2021 Natalie is listed by training with 15 years in government and experience at several regulators and is steeped in public and Regulatory law I read the oap
Is tasked with protecting and improving the environment and holding government and public bodies to account a small task I’m sure and I look forward to hearing exactly how that’s going on so Natalie over to [Applause] you thank you everyone now my team told me when I was preparing for this that
Everyone will just have had lunch and therefore you will be snoozing I was advised to make my talk animated and Lively and if possible to uh include some audience participation don’t get your hopes up um I’ll try my best so I’d like to say an enormous
Thank you for inviting me here today to give this s John badet lecture at such a prestigious event uh my name is Natalie I’m the CEO of the office for Environmental Protection for England and Northern Ireland uh my talk today will be quite England focus with a a sprinkling of Northern
Ireland because that’s the nature of our remit but I appreciate the issues that we raised do affect all four uh countries of the United Kingdom so on to the audience participation go on how many of you here have heard of the oep and stick your hands up wow that’s one
Of the best responses I’ve ever had I have been in a room with planners and I got about five hands up that was a that was a tough gig um put your hands back up if you think if you got in a lift you’d be able to tell somebody what we actually
Do yeah that’s more like it it’s not an easy uh it’s not an easy elevator pitch I’ve been working on it for about 2 years it’s not going to be an elevator pitch today so buckle in um so I’m going to tell you a bit more
About the O uh in a little bit before I get to that I’ll start with full disclosure I’m definitely not a scientist uh and I have no long career as an environmentalist either I’m going to fess up I’m a lawyer y uh by training uh I’m a
Regulator though by uh trade but I recognize that both of these professions uh might be said to carry a little bit of reputational baggage don’t apologize uh and my background probably puts me rather in the minority uh here today so why have they put a regulator and a
Lawyer in charge of the office for Environmental Protection well let me talk to you a little bit about regulation um it’s really important I think to understand if you’re a regulatory theorist like I am I’m I’m great F at parties don’t get me wrong um the purpose of Regulation is to manage
Down the risk of harm think of it as a harm reduction business that’s harms to people harms to communities and in our case harms to the the environment uh itself and as a society we choose to regulate when forces exist that left to themselves will cause harms that we have
Decided as a society are not acceptable to us and it is abundantly clear that many forces exist that will cause harm to our environment they have caused harm and they will continue to do so unless they are constrained and regulation like it or not is a primary way in which the
Forces that can cause harm are constraint so we are we are stuck with it ladies and gentlemen and that’s great because it pays my bills how well we regulate though really matters because effective regulation really good regulation and that doesn’t mean lots of it lots of people think
Good regulation is lots of it that’s not true at all but really good regulation means less harm less damage less loss less risk poor more regulation on the other side is a burden on society but more importantly allows those unacceptable harms that we have a society have decided we will not
Tolerate it lets them occur and we have seen that happen now we don’t claim to be a regulator at the OE our chair is very firm on this I quite like to think we’re a bit of a regulator but that’s just so I can go to all the regulatory
Conferences and hang out with geeks like myself and but we are in the business of managing down harm and our job is to oversee the environmental regulators and delivery bodies uh the regulator of The Regulators has been used by other people not by me because I’m not allowed to um
And if I break it down how we do that so our job is to scrutinize how well our environmental laws are working in practice there’s a mixed scorecard on that at the moment I draw on the experience that we have looking at laws uh so that when new environmental laws
Come through they designed uh really well and implemented really well both of those things are important and fundamentally our job is to hold government to account for delivering on its own promises and we do that partly by independently assessing progress every single year making clear what is
Working well making clear what is not and giving advice on how things can improve and it is a challenging role but I suggest to all of you today that it is a crucial one we say what needs to be said without fear or favor and we operate independently of the public
Bodies we oversee so therefore you can see how you use the tool the tools of my trade as a lawyer and a regulator as the CEO uh of the office for Environmental Protection using environmental laws and targets enforcement activity monitoring reports and scrutiny and these have a critical IAL role in making our
Regulatory system work for our environment and right now we are keenly focused on playing our full part in tackling the acute biodiversity crisis that now faces us now there’s always a risk that our work can sound a little dry I’ll do my best uh to to make it interesting for
All of you but there is always a risk around that and I’ve already said that I might find the subject of Regulation really exciting but I am odd so that’s understandable but it’s worth reminding ourselves of the reality of the situation that we now face and I I know
You’ll all be well versed in this I might be preaching to the choir a little bit the sobering studies of the intactness of our native biodiversity and we must keep all of this in Focus we are one of the most nature depleted countries in the world
And this is an awful thing to have to say and not only that key biodiversity Trends many of which are based on the data collected by this diligent Audience Show a general picture of further decline overall things are getting worse and not better so for example the UK wild birds indicator published recently
By the British trust for Ornithology and others shows that the abundance of wild breeding birds on the whole is in continued Decline and although we can see some stabilization in the the abundance of some ecological groupings such as Upland and Wetland Birds this picture is not at all encouraging and a
Similar picture exists across the UK’s four nations for many key indicators now in England our current scrutiny of government progress against its environmental Improvement plan till recently that was the 25-year environmental plan if you don’t live in breath governance like I do our analysis shows that the abundance of priority
Species has been in longterm in a long-term state of Decline and there have been a few positive signs of recovery Over The Last 5 Years however when you consider natural VAR variability and uncertainty in the indicators themselves we currently do not yet see the hope for bending of the
Curve that will first Halt and then reverse the decline in species and achieve the key newly set legally binding targets that the government has set for itself so we clude that nature is in crisis and the lack of improvement cannot be a surprise to you in this room
And where I know that great efforts are underway to try and turn this around as a society we simply must do more we must be more effective and we must have more impact that’s why me and my colleagues at the oep are passionate about our mission to protect and improve the
Environment but we have to do that as part of our role by holding government and other public bodies to account so there’s my uh my opening Gambit so I’m going to turn a little bit to the nuts and bolts of what the oep is and
How we operate you can take notes so if you are stuck in a lift with an interesting person who wants to know who we are you will have the answers the oep was established by the environment act 2021 it was the act that gave us the mission to hold government
And other public authorities to account to their environmental laws and their targets and to give a bit of context uh we turned two last week uh in legal terms uh that doesn’t mean we’re up and running we’ve been operational for 16 months now so we are still I call us the
New kid on the Block I still think that holds our remit covers England uh and Northern Ireland but we have uh fantastic working relationships with our colleagues uh in Wales uh and here in Scotland with environmental standards Scotland and we were brought about as part of a new approach to environmental
Governance which was triggered by uh EU exit I get compared unfavorably with the commission on a regular basis particularly on Twitter I try not to take it personally they have a bigger stick than I ever have but currently we run four times faster than they do so you know swings and
Roundabouts uh the other parts of the act that are relevant from an environmental governance uh perspective our new legally binding stute targets set earlier this year uh making the environmental Improvement plan what was the 25 year environment plan and what is now EIP 23 uh a legally binding
Obligation uh on government uh and also establishing the environmental principles policy statement it trips off the tongue uh which now makes it mandatory in force from the start of this month for government departments to have regard to those wellestablished uh Environmental princi principles and we have four functions in
Regulatory terms these are the things that we can do to do our job uh we scrutinize those environmental Improvement plans that’s in England and in Northern Ireland although Northern Ireland is late in setting theirs for complicated reasons uh we scrutinize the targets as well we scrutinize uh
Environmental law both the making of it and the using of it uh we can provide advice to government uh specifically on environmental law where we can advise them whether we are asked to give that advice or not uh and more broadly uh and we have investigation and enforcement
Powers which is the thing that everybody is most interested in gets us on the news um but is really only part of the toolkit and you can’t litigate your way out of a nature crisis and we use those four things those four things that we can do in
Pursuit of four main goals the first one no surprises sustained environmental Improvement it’s pretty fundamental to who we are we also want to see better environmental law we want to see it better implemented lots of betters in there but then we have got a way to go
And we want to see more compliance with the law that exists particularly when it’s good law uh and we want to be a really good organization we’re only little there’s 75 of us about a quarter of our staff are based in Northern Ireland so that’s not a very large
Number of people uh to take on uh the entirety of uh of the environmental uh system apart from some parts of climate change thankfully haven’t got to deal with that just yet because that’s I think that would break us um but it’s a big remit uh and I’m going to talk through
Those four goals uh to talk you through a little bit about some of the actual work uh that we’re doing uh and also why data is critically important uh in so many of those areas so I mentioned one of our functions is to scrutinize progress against government’s uh environmental Improvement plan and their
Targets uh we had the new one uh in January in this year Northern Ireland I said we’re still uh waiting for one it is overdue and overdue in law and this is a really important bit of kit uh in terms of environmental uh governance it
Sets out or it’s meant to set out a comprehensive plan for the environment that government not just the department of the environment is committed to it’s meant to be a crossover coordinating uh uh document that integrates uh and brings together uh Environmental Protection degree to which it does that
Um remains to be seen but that’s certainly uh the intent um in January this year is part of the first cycle of our scrutiny of that we published our first meaningful substantive independent report uh on government’s progress uh it it’s some dismal reading you can find it on our
Website uh we found found and I choose my words carefully that the government was not demonstrably on track to achieve any of the goals in the 25 year environment plan not a single one and I choose my words carefully about not demonstrably on track because for a number of those goals there simply
Wasn’t the information available to make the assessment one of the key findings in our report was that simply uh won’t do that assessment showed that the current pace and scale of action will not deliver the changes necessary to significantly improve the environment uh in England but and it’s
Important there is opportunity to change course it is not too late the Ambitions can be achieved uh but change and Improvement needs to happen so one of those opportunities for example exists in nature friendly farming one of the largest pressures on the environment is the agriculture
Sector but if we get it right if government policy properly supports that it can also be the largest enabler for improvement on land and also in water and it’s not easy we know that otherwise it would have been done already but we can do better and we think it is
Possible to bend that curve of biodiversity loss we’re not giving up it can be done to rise the challenge of delivering all of the Ambitions described in the IP we called for better alignment and coordination at all levels of government including local and National we not we
Don’t see that uh with actions that extend beyond defra we pointed out the need for better targeted uh And Timely data collection and collation with the goals of the EIP in mind using the data to line up with the with the goals and with the targets so you know where
You’re starting you know where you’re going you know where you’re trying to get to that’s not there at the moment uh improved assessments of progress for which you need that data and purpose-driven monitoring evaluation and learning programs so you know what’s working and when things are not working you can change
Course ensure all of that comes down to better planning for Effective delivery and here we come across a key theme of this conference we go back to data the UK does have some of the best environmental data sets in the world when it comes to assessing Environmental Improvement but we still find their
Analysis and presentation lacking in a number of ways in England and Northern Ireland for example there are major data gaps to monitor the health of soils and the marine environment and there are also and there no surprises to you here data access issues now for example we are pleased that defra recently
Published an update to the abundance of priority species in England mentioned that before this has been 5 years in waiting and that is just too long until a few days ago the most recent data on the decline of priority species stopped in 2018 despite your survey work uh and
Initial analysis that underpin those data have been completed uh years earlier and this is a big constraint on delivery groups in using the most upto-date information to make timely changes to their plans we have our next report uh imminent uh we are well Advanced with it
Is going to be published in January uh next year year and while we will assess progress against the individual EIP goals as we are obliged to do biodiversity is very much front and center in our thinking we are conducted an in-depth assessment on the theme of improving nature no spoilers please have
A look out for our report uh coming out uh in January the reason we’ve had that focus is that the EIP uh 20123 the replacement of the 25- Year environment plan uh has an apex Target of thriving plants and Wildlife and we’ve looked uh at analysis of species abundance nature recovery
Targets as well as the plans in place uh to deliver them we are trying to work out where the barriers are to progress we’re trying to see where the opportunities are to do better and to support that we undertook a public call for evidence over the summer uh to which
We had a very very helpful uh response and thank you to anyone in this audience who contributed to that call for evidence our work is always so much better and fored Med when we can draw on the insights of our many well-informed uh stakeholders and as well as the
Individual goal areas EIP 23 identifies cross cutting themes such as green Finance green choices natural Capital new farming schemes and biodiversity uh net gain we’ve also identified the attributes that a good EIP should have we want to see a Clear Vision um we think that helps unify thinking um we
Want to see that translated effectively into policy and commitments and actions across government not just in defra and delivery plans are absolutely key uh and our view is that those delivery plans have to be more than a list of actions list of things uh that
Must be done we need to know how they going to contribute uh and essentially the way we think about it is we want to see how they stack up so when you put intervention on top of intervention and intervention is it going to get you to
That Target and at the moment we can’t see the evidence that they do we also want to see those plans being far more transparent to allow everyone to see and understand what needs to be done and we also think there’s a critical Gap here we will continue to press the government
For increased transparency over its plans it is not an issue we are going to let go uh and we know we are not the only voice doing so but back to the point about data it’s it’s just it’s so important and concerns about gaps and opportunities are a regular theme across
All of our work so that’s uh that’s the start let me talk a bit more about better laws and better implemented laws well-designed laws that are well implemented are key to Environmental Protection and Improvement we see them as foundational uh on which other efforts and activities uh stand and that includes tackling
Biodiversity loss protecting habitats such as from pressures such such as uh developments uh and other areas environmental regulation and we do get it that the government has competing priorities for example around new homes uh and politically these pressures are sometimes placed as in conflict with one
Another but we don’t see it that way our view is that good regulation can achieve a good balance between these priorities as long as they are sound and well implemented with that in mind we’ve very recently looked looked in detail at the implementation of the environmental assessments regimes particularly
Relating to new developments we just published a report on that uh and doing that we looked at uh habitats regulations assessments strategic environmental assessments and environmental impact assessments we wanted to get a sense of what worked and what didn’t and that’s in the context of a new leveling up and regeneration act
Which has the potential to create a new regime around environmental assessments and it’s no surprise that we find the main barriers uh to these regimes uh not being effective wasn’t really to do with the laws uh themselves uh at all uh you change the law but you don’t change the
Practice you’re not going to solve the problem this is a consistent theme again that we see in environmental regulation uh what we found uh in our research was that uh the point about data came up uh over and over again uh with concerns about lack of ready access
To relevant data being a sign ific barrier to an effective system uh and the work that you do uh mbn to improve and facilitate access to data is vital in this area and you will appreciate uh more than most uh the importance of continuing to improve in this area we
Also found issues here about uh inadequacies in postdecision monitoring what that means basically is not following up on decisions to make sure actions have been taken uh and simply a lack of expertise uh and resource in planning authorities and you can see what I mean there about
Why the laws can change but you won’t achieve uh the objectives that you’re looking for unless you really tackle the ways of working and how those laws are being used in practice it’s all about implementation and action and that’s when I talk about regulation that’s what
I mean I don’t mean rules I mean the practice on the ground of how you use them to achieve the objectives and we think and the evidence supports us there so much hinges uh in that area so looking ahead we have some other programs of work in train uh we’re doing
A very substantive piece of work uh on the laws around protected sites um looking at special areas of conservation uh and special protected areas in both England and Northern Ireland uh and we’re also doing a substantial piece of work looking at uh the Water framework directive as it’s being used in practice
And again that’s in anticipation of likely reform uh in this area uh I could talk to you about some of our other work you can find everything that we’re doing uh on our website we have particular interest in the implementation um of the biodiversity net gain uh and the Marine
Net game proposals again we have said so much turns on how these regimes are implemented uh huge opportunity it could easily uh be wholly ineffective and it’s not the laws that matter here it’s how they are used and finally I’ll talk very very briefly about some of our compliance
With environmental law work this is the stuff uh that gets us on the Telly um although it is only a proportion of our work we have two very significant investigations ongoing at the moment one into the regulation uh of combined sewage overflows in England where we’re investigating uh the de Secretary State
Environment agency and ofwat and we are at a very critical stage of that investigation and as much as I would like to talk about it more I’ve been told in no in certain terms absolutely not to um we have another major investigation going on in Northern Ireland uh in relation to uh permitting
Of certain agricultural buildings uh because of the very very significant amount of ammonia pollution uh that is present in Northern Ireland I’ve had the same briefing I can’t talk about it don’t talk about it um what I can say is that there will be key decisions on both
Both of these cases very very imminently and when we get to that decision point we will be in line with the way that we were completely transparent about it so I imagine we I imagine you’ll hear about that on the news um because that’s usually how these things
Go so if I may sum up about why environmental governance matters we’re not a boots on the ground regulator we’re not out there in the field like so many of you are we work in the background but our job is to make the whole system work more effectively we’re
There to shine a light where things are not working and ultimately in those most serious of situations where the law is simply not being followed we’re impaired to take very firm investigation and follow-up enforcement action we have already shown that we are very willing to do that we have shown that we are
Willing to say what needs to be said however uncomfortable that is for government but rarely can I make government do something that government doesn’t want to do a lot of what we have to do is bring uh bring it to light to allow proper public scrutiny to allow
Parliamentary scrutiny uh and make sure there is an independent trustworthy assessment of how things are where we’re going and what we could do better that’s the job that they have that we have at the OE I have a team of fantastic people who are compl completely committed uh to
That objective um I hope that I’ve given you a bit of a flavor uh of what what we’re doing uh and please do stand behind us as we try as I say to my people to change the world thank you very much thank you very much we’ll take a
Couple of questions squeeze in a couple of questions any questions lady in the middle here no we can there was a lot of parliamentary debate about that if we took money off government we just give it back to another bit of government and
It would all be a bit of a waste of time um we uh we can investigate so what that means is we’ll do a very detailed piece of work and assess and make a determination about whether we think that Public Authority has broken the law we’ve already found um even in the
Preliminary stages of the cases we’re working on uh that public bodies take that incredibly seriously that the public takes it incred seriously um are uh institutions of government are meant to comply with the law and when they don’t or when there’s a implication that they that they’re not that has
Consequences and quite significant ones um ultimately we can’t enforce that but what we can do and what we’re empowered to do is take those matters to court uh so if a Public Authority rejects uh the position as we set it out and of course these things are always extremely
Complicated behind the scenes um if we think they’re wrong we can take them to court and we absolutely will take them to court if that’s the right thing to to do and then it’s in the hands of the courts what the courts can do is make
Orders to put things right it’s not a straightforward system it is imperfect in many many ways and we’d always try and negotiate our way to a good outcome as much as possible but this is completely unprecedented in the domestic uh system uh in England it’s unprecedented in Northern Ireland as far
As I can tell is pretty much unprecedented in the world so it’s an interesting experiment but as I said I’ve got two cases very significant cases in the pipeline um right now we will be making decisions on whether they progress to more formal action um within the next couple of
Months so we shall see to paron to day there that’s absolutely fine so another round of applause please more I’ve got time I’ve got time you did this last time one more question I was just going to ask what’s the relationship if any with local government so we have regulatory
Oversight of local government to the extent that they have uh they’re subject to environmental laws there there was a lot of anxiety in local government that we were going to be if you excuse the vernacular and Monumental pain in the ass for them um I’ve had to explain a
Lot of the time that I’m not very interested in unpicking individual decisions in local government but I do get a lot of comp compl about local government uh and I think over time we may well see patterns that um we see across multiple local authorities of areas where the laws are not working
Very well or where it’s persistently not being complied with if we see those patterns we may well want to look into one as a test case or do some thematic reviews of that but yeah it’s it’s it’s at the moment um it hasn’t risen to the
Surface of something that of of we try to look at things that are of national strategic significance and we haven’t identified that pattern in local government yet we might okay yes thank you very much and before we go we’ve got a medal this is very exciting so they told me how was
Going to get a medal thank you I’m sure someone wants a photo I’ve told everyone at the oep that we’re getting a medal I have to bring it into the office and we’re going to put it on the wall we’re very excited that’s yours now over to uh celebrate uh our Awards
We’re going change things around year speak now toate thank you Neil hi everyone me again and not for the last time today I’m afraid to say um so oh I tell you what though I’ve been told there’s a step oh I’ll be at least 5’4 now how about [Applause]
That very exciting um so yeah it’s my pleasure to say a little bit about the NBN awards for wildlife recording the awards were set up in 2015 to recognize and celebrate the phenomenal work of wildlife recorders and those who share data across the UK and since we launched the awards um we
Have celebrated the work and achievements of 64 biological recorders the awards were set up in partnership with the biological records Center and the national forum for biological recording and it’s wonderful to be able to continue this tradition of celebrating um what we see as you know the unsung heroes within our sector the
People who are out there day in day out fine weather and foul collecting data so as we have um celebrated the awards since 2015 we decided it was time for a bit of a review and one of the reasons for that was that we saw the number of nominations dropping and
Despite our best efforts we weren’t having um very many nominations coming forward at times for certain categories and so we thought okay well let’s have a look at this um let’s go back to back to basics and let’s go to our community to pass Award winners to pass nominators of
Award winners and um uh nominees and to see what what you recommend and there are a number of key findings that you have recommended firstly to change the nomination period so previously it was May to July that nominations were open whereas from uh 2024 is going to be
January to March and the feeling there was that we should really be avoiding the ecologist busy field season when the last thing you want to be doing you know when you get back in after a tiring day in the field was filling in some paperwork to nominate someone or
Yourself you know however worthy of the cause might be um another change is to review the current NBN award categories and as a result of that we are now adding two new categories one for Lifetime Achievement and another one for verifiers which you know again such an important critical
Part of our community um which you know isn’t often highlighted or or celebrated we were asked if we could simplify the nomination process further which we have responded to and to publicize the awards more widely and perhaps that’s something that you can help with um we would love it if you
Would take on this um the mantle of helping us share and publicize and celebrate the awards and most importantly get those nominations in because we know you all know people who people and groups who deserve these Awards and it’d be fantastic if we can renew your enthusiasm for nominating
People and making sure that the awards are um worthwhile and special and sustainable for the long term um so we’re going to be meeting some of the past Award winners very shortly but I am told that I can actually Point them out on screen although I can’t now see the um the
Clicker you’ve got it so you can do it so we have um cie who is second from the left in the top row who was a winner in 2015 we have uh um VAR who is top right who was a winner in 20 2017 and we have
Dakota second row from the bottom third in from the right in the sunglasses there who was a winner in 2021 it’s so lovely to reconnect with past winners I think it’s something in the past you know we’ve given out the awards and then we’ve all gone about you know gone on
Our ways and nothing more has happened but we love to reconnect with our past winners and to find out what they’re doing and that’s what’s happening next so um back to Neil to introduce them I should remove the steps since you don’t need it nice you to say
That up who thinks I need them it’s fair if you do well let’s just hand straight over to uh Cali Alman Smith it what dat was it 2017 2015 2015 yes published your first report in the Highland naturalist in 2012 yes fested um and I have my
Hello everyone I am cie Alman Smith and I won the David Robinson NBN youth award uh in 2015 and is an absolute honor to be asked back to talk about how I got there and what I’ve done since uh for me it all started when I
Was seven um being forced outside by my mother um and and uh and I started volunteering with the Highland biological recorder group specifically with amphibian reptiles and that really inspired a love for her patology with me um and then I got to volunteer with the Highland SE show project which was absolutely
Amazing project threeyear project that just took me right across the region um and I learned so much about our marine environments and how special they are especially in this country um and then they both of these things were collided wonderfully in the work that I would you
Know would dominate my life for the next few years and that was kirkton Bay with palmate NS uh on the coast in saltwater conditions H there’s David O’Brien he really is a guru um and it was it was so many years of just wondering why these amphibians were here they really weren’t
Meant to be challenging conditions uh it really it really was sometime I mean when you’re on the west coast of the Highlands you know that it’s often je and gray and wet and cold and we are right next uh to look out where sometimes uh those waves
Would just be claing at us and we’re only a couple meters away from them this is my paper uh that I got to publish in 2021 writing it in 2020 it was covid there was nothing else to do um so if you like to go read that please
Please do uh these are the results um from that and you can see that predominantly most of the pools were pretty much fresh water but it’s it’s this range up into very high saline conditions where it was really interesting because we were finding NES not just adults but also ly in those
Conditions um and there were you know a plenty of these pools who who recorded really high cities and we saw we see there um this stable population of palain news the fact that it is adults and then this High number of Lai and then that you know naturally drops off
And then we get adults again year after year now uh I am now uh and volunteer with amphibian reptile conservation uh this was one project we did which was really great we’re working with the community and getting them to just fall in love with pawns that they can find in
Their Garden in the backyard um that’s fellow volunteer Molly uh who you know is amazing she doesn’t just drive the whole team to the location she does most of the work and then drives us whole home again uh this is this is me volunteering with arc when they actually made me wear
The purple shirt I don’t look good in purple this is a rare photo uh and then being part now of Edinburgh uni in my third year and uh this is this is the good side of it being able to go outside and work in some really incredible spots uh this was me helping
Molly with her dissertation um and finding finding more of the creatures that I just love uh and I am now also Treasurer to the what was formerly uh biological concept conservation Society uh of Edinburgh University we are now the wildlife Society because the former
Name was a marful um and this was one of our really great events where we managed to just go onto campus grounds and just show how much life uh there was and every once in a while I do get back to where it all started and uh I love it
And the mbn award was a really high achievement and a and a wonderful moment and it’s put me on a a fantastic path in life so thank you for listening and um yeah it’s been great next we have farry mcam um winner in 2017 youth award hi bar
Hi everyone uh my name is f my pronouns are shear and I was the David Robertson youth Award winner um back in 2017 um and my journey towards the youth award was kind of in two parts um when I was 17 years old I Spent My Summer
Holiday basically in a fridge um looking at the impact of agrochemicals on Marine invertebrates uh specifically amphipods um and looking at the behavioral impacts there uh so I basically Spent My Summer doing doing that and uh doing that research project and the other part was that um from 2016 through to
20188 I was part of rout which was Scotland youth biodiversity panel that was a collaboration between young Scott and nature Scott to really bring young people’s voices into nature and to make sure that young people are being engaged in a way that works for young people and those two
Experiences um were where brought me to the David Robertson youth award but my work across the past six years since then has really kind of followed those two themes uh as well of meaningful youth inclusion and scientific research and using stem to make a difference in
The world because it was the first time that I’d realized how important science was in the real world not just a bunch of equations in a textbook um so now I’ve spent the past few years as the founder of Youth stem 2030 we’re a youth Le social Enterprise that empowers young
People from over 80 countries globally uh to use stem so science technology engineering maths research and Innovation to tackle the world’s biggest challenges because if my time doing research as a high school student taught me anything it was that there’s no age limit on doing this but young people
Don’t always have the support the opportunities of the platforms to be able to do that so we’ve now been able to make that Journey a little bit easier for over 2 and a half thousand young people right around the world to hopefully be able to make a better
Planet um for both people and for our nature and I’m really passionate about embedding young people’s voices in uh these spaces and I’ve worked with a whole range of different organizations on that and I’m especially Keen to chat to anybody that wants to do it but
Doesn’t know how um so that’s a lot of where my current work now lies as well um so I just want to say thank you so much for having me back um at the mbn conference and I guess use the opportunity to encourage people to nominate other people uh and especially
People from backgrounds who maybe underrepresented in the sector maybe from marginalized backgrounds who are doing amazing work but don’t always get the same recognition for it um to make sure that that under celebration can be reversed um so thank you so much for having me [Applause]
You get the feeling that the future’s in safe hands don’t you hear those two speakers um next up uh Matt lendor CEO of the mamal society group Award winners in 2020 thank you hello yes uh I we deal with mammals so I don’t have a puffing up there I’ve
Got a shrew um we stand up for the uh for the little guy and shrew is uh amazing family includes our smallest British mammal our only venomous British mammal and the only family of wildlife that shrinks in Winter including its brain so uh yes we were the 2020 mbn
Group Award winners um that was the year that we published our mammal atlas of the UK um which hopefully uh you all have at home on your shelves um and since then we’ve been very busy but for those of you that aren’t aware of of the mammal Society like the Shrew we are
Very small but very important and very busy uh our vision is a future in which sustainable mammal populations Thrive as part of healthy and diverse ecosystems benefiting people and nature across the British Isles and we do that a lot by collecting data also using data so we’re
Both a contributor and a user of the mbn um to inform data Leed conservation um but we also uh are very focused on skill building uh we have a training program we have an education and Outreach project uh and we also uh do as much as
We can to raise awareness of the issues facing British mammals um and the need for science dead conservation um you might be aware of our mammal mappa tool I don’t need to go into the detail um you heard about the ins mapper tool earlier from Steph it’s it’s basically
The same uh but for mammals it’s a great one to have in your pocket and just to wherever you’re out and about for any other kind of survey or just for a walk um just have it ready to record uh your mammal sightings or set yourself going
On a transect survey um and this was what fueled the mammal Atlas along with other mbn data um but we also uh are constantly refining and adding to this app to make it as easy as possible uh for anyone to record mammals and submit those records um and anything we collect
Through mammal mappa is not retained for the mammal Society uh it is passed through IR record for verification and into the mbn atlas um we also have a local groups Network we are currently um continuing to grow and support our local groups and we have a very big focus at the moment
On trying to diversify uh those that are involved in our surveys those who are involved in citizen science for biodiversity monitoring much needed in our sector um and that includes age uh ethnicity and various other um demographic counters um we have our national Harvest mouth survey launched
Since we were the winners in 2020 as so 2021 was our first survey it’s been running it’s now in its third year really really important everyone can get involved in this we are in our third survey season right now not looking for Harvest mice themselves but looking for
The nests that they leave behind from the breeding season in the summer so we do do our our surveying over the winter um so it’s non-disruptive although this year we have seen them using those nests right into October which is very unusual and we’ve got a report uh of each year
Including last year’s um we also for Scotland we have a volunteer Mountain hair survey which is a partnership with BTO nature Scott and game and Wildlife Conservation trust using mapple mappa to try and improve biological survey data uh on Mountain hair um and right now very exciting project inspired by the
Need to track um a non-native potentially invasive uh new species in Britain that we found last year through our local groups Network the greater white to shrew um but also to improve small mammal records um across the whole of of the British Isles um we’re doing
Al pelet dissection um to find out what owls have been finding and there we go that’s one that’s been unwrapped for you so that’s a shrew as well actually no that’s not sorry that’s a bow oh I should have had a shrew um okay right
And then just I’ve only got 3 minutes so I think I’m up uh so I’m just going to mention we’ve got our annual conference it’s every year next year is in the spring uh 2024 please do um attend if you’re interested in mammal monitoring mammal surveying building your skills
Building your knowledge of what else is going on around that in the sector um and if you are a member of the mammal Society it’s considerably cheaper I think you get your Year’s membership basically back on your annual conference ticket especially if you then also do one of our training programs which are
Also thoroughly reduced for members um and do get involved in your local groups and help us to help the mbn to help mammals okay I think that’s me done thank you very [Applause] much now Dakota Reed who you come award in 2021 thank you um I do need the little
Still but um I’ll make do anyway um yes please actient thank you um hi I’m Dakota Reed and I won the newcomer award in 2021 and um I am from Northern Ireland and as you’ve just heard there are some particular challenges with um Northern Ireland and saving the environment there um and one
Of these actually is the marine environment and the data gaps in the marine environment which I’m going to mention a bit um since I won the award which was Absolut a huge surprise and really really lovely because I got involved in um biological recording during the first lockdown for the first
Time I wasn’t from a science background um and in the last two years I’ve gone on to do uh master and ecological management which it certainly helped doing all of that recording and feeling sort of boosted and motivated to keep going with the recording uh through the recognition from NBN um and then
Continued volunteering as well um continued doing terrestrial recording it was um mological recording that I really got involved with first and um that’s really how I ended up sort of here um but um and that included on rspb reserves I know work for the rspb um and
Including getting a new moth record um for Northern Ireland and new moth species silky way Scott usually when I tell people that they look a little bit um confused about why that’s exciting but I’m speaking to the right crowd today I think um but um something I wanted to talk about particularly was
Sort of getting into this Marine space um so just over a year ago I helped um assisted with founding this group called wild Belfast and um over the last year I’ve run um I think it’s maybe half a dozen of these Marine recording sessions and I think it’s just sort of being
Passionate about not coming from a sciency background and wanting to sort of um you know help the nature crisis and wanting to sort of create a space for people who um wanted to do the same wanted to find out what’s on their doorstep and wanted to do something
About saving that um and recording it so these sessions have been really really good um and I’ve certainly felt motivated to run them from um winning the award it really gave me a bit of confidence to do something like that basically we’re using I naturalist and encouraging people to come down to
Belfast lock my patch um that I’ve explored over the years and was just amazed to find out how much was there and thought I really want to share this with other people um we’ve had I think over the last sort of six months we’ve been running this um I think we’ve maybe
Had about 60 old people in total have attended them um which has been absolutely fantastic loads of people people doing this for the first time getting them to log those records and find some interesting Wildlife um you know we found some really cool things you know things like starfish are always
A crowd Placer um but also something like snake locks and enemies which I having visited the the area for years didn’t even realize was on our particular piece of Shoreline didn’t expect to find it there um but a particular thing I wanted to talk about was the native oyster um which some of
If if you know a bit about um Northern Ireland or I think the situation is probably quite similar in Scotland um you know underwent huge declines but starting to make a bounce back in part due to um conservation efforts so in Belfast lock the species went extinct it
Was partly because of exploitation um but also because of the very very poor water quality in the lock and it was because people were just sort of out and about and recording them that we realized they’re actually naturally making a bit of a bounce back and then
Um our partners um olster Wildlife um are doing a sort of reintroduction scheme there so something like this which we found during these surveys has been you know a real example of why citizen Science Matters why getting out to your local area and finding out what’s there really matters um but
Definitely winning the award did give me some of the confidence to do that in my day-to-day job now in um in policy in rspb um I use data from the other end a lot and see why it really really matters um which I think is meant in my free
Time really trying to get encourage people and encourage people from different backgrounds and you know Belfast is increasingly diverse and wonderful city um and getting those people out and about exploring Belfast lock is something we’re quite disconnected from often in the city and getting people to realize there’s so
Much just on our door steps it’s really fantastic um and it’s been great and thanks for thank you to the N NBN trust for you know probably giving me a lot of the confidence to do that um because it’s been fantastic watching people have their eyes open to the amazing Wildlife
We have on our Shores and hopefully motivating them to save it a we bit thank you [Applause] um although we’ve um paused the NBN Awards until next year we’re still going to present the John Sawyer NBN open data award as this recognizes and celebrates outstanding contribution of NBN data
Partners towards achieving nbn’s mission of making data work for nature uh so I’d like to announce the award um to the winner of the open date award 2020 3 is the national longhorn beetle recording scheme um and I’d like to invite Simon rol of the UK Center for Ecology and
Hydrology to accept the award on behalf of will Heeney please what I’ve just got a should I sayit okay um so yeah I’m here representing the biological record Center who enables and supports these recording schemes that really is the award goes to the recording schemes um so the uh record uh the national
Longhorn beour recording scheme has over 41,000 verified records two data sets on the NBN Atlas contributes uh over 2third of all the longhorn beator records on on the NBN Atlas uh it covers about uh 60 species mostly large charismatic uh um species but mly have Lara which uh
Develop in decaying wood and are therefore very important indicators of ancient Woodland the scheme was set H with the biological records Center in in partnership in 1982 uh and then in 1999 there was a um a national Atlas uh published by the then scheme organizer uh Dr Peter twin it was subsequently led
By Dr Martin redek and Peter Hodge then in 2016 will Heeney um who is the receiver recipient of the rewards who couldn’t be here unfortunately um but also alongside Katy pots took on the scheme they enthusiastically encourage people to get out and record very active on social media and um articles running workshops
And and they published a field studies Council guide to get more people out and about uh so so yeah this has led to a lot more records in recent years uh Records are typically submitted to the scheme via iord or on spreadsheets uh and then all verified records end up on
The NBA analy under an open license which is great um updated every month uh Katy pot stepped down from the scheme a few years ago uh due to other commitments but will Heeney has been carrying on uh good work unfortunately will um can’t uh this and so so Martin
Harvey was going to accept it but unfortunately he can’t make it either uh so U you stuck with me um but uh yeah we we’ll we’ll pass on this reward to him and I think it’s very well deserving very active scheme and if you see a
Longor be out there then do record it submit it to I record and it will be on the NBN Atlas uh before you know it uh so um yeah thank you very much [Applause] [Applause] okay thank you got [Applause] That okay can wrap the on next we’ve got gelle St uh Who’s lead at M trust for naturalist to update us on where things are around naturalist this laptop’s doing different things oh go back one yeah yeah right hi for those who have haven’t met me yet my name is Jazelle and I’m
The lead for inist UK um it’s great that a number of um our talkers today have already talked about I naturalist and um what I’m going to do is hopefully give you an overview of the use and impact of I naturalist in the UK and its
Place in insist and science see if I can get this Zapp to work yes yeah so for those that don’t know I naturous UK is part of a global wide life recording platform and the mbn trust are the lead um organization and we’re supported by the biological record Center and also
The Marine biological Association many of you will have come across the app and that’s very widely used globally and also in the UK but we do encourage people in the UK to actually go on to the inous UK website to explore to identify and learn much more about the observations because
There’s a lot more going on on that so IAT UK was um was launched in April 2021 and since that date we’ve um had around 46,000 people have Affiliated to iratus UK which means they’ve been active since that date um in April 2021 we’ve also had over 3 million verifiable observations being added
Added to the site and as you can see UK users are part of a global Community which includes 20 partner networks and this means that all these partner networks including myself we all sit on the international Steering group so we kind of have a have a input into what’s
Going on with the development on a global basis so what happens to all these records well many of you may have seen this data flow diagram before as something similar so in the UK um there are a number of ways that data flows into the mbn atlas I naturous UK data is downloaded
By the biological record Center and through I record where the research grade observations are available for verifiers to assess and they’ll be as to they can assess them in the same way they assess any other observations that are added directly to I record or come from any other
Routs also had a talk about gbff so global data is shared by inist um globally to to GFF and this is the um information relating to the UK data um as you can see from the graph on the right um recording on inat has definitely increased since um 2018 which
Is around the the launch of the original app and from 2021 onwards which when ratus UK went live um and there’s a link to these these stats from the in naturous UK Hub pages on the MBI and Trust website then on the other side is something we’ve alluded to before in
Talks is about um the observations by licensed type we know that there’s a lot more we need to do to educate users to change their license settings to either CCB or cc0 as these license types Ure that observations can be used as widely and shared as much as possible so if you
Are on inat there is a call out please go and check your license settings and ensure you make them as open as possible so they can be used by your local environmental record centers and National schemes and societies for onward Education and Research so who uses ninees who are the people who who
Are are recording their stings well this snapshot gives you an idea of the sort of people so for example might be individuals who like the travel who like Grassroots football macro photography as well as organizations such as local environmental record centers all got a passion to record and share Wildlife
Data and this graph shows um illustrates a global Trend when people sign up to our naturalist now I’m not going to give any prizes for you to spot when the City nature challenge might be taking place and also there’s a a slight increase around the time with the Euro as well
And perhaps this graph can demonstrate that actually if we create the right citizen science project um we can engage more and new people in recording so one way that we can is um that I naturist UK engage as people and also groups can engage with its users as
VI the Project’s feature it’s basically a filtering tool so it’s used by International projects such as the City nature Challenge and the euroi Blitz but also in the UK you’ve got our national parks UK look wild so that includes sightings that come from the Kang national park for example and those who
Who here last year will remember why are speaking about spotting Wildlife um recording Wildlife spotted on their their Zoo sites it’s also used by other organizations so the dipes Forum are a big user of it and part of their reason for being on there is to help educate
And inform about learning to ID these particular species um then you also find small specialist projects so for example Co cids of aine on there but also there an education education sorry Edinburgh living city project so you’re in Edinburgh if you get the time go out and
Record on natur just and add to that project and add to the sightings found across the city so what are these users discovered yes there are many observations of the easy spots but there are also some gems in this treasure trave for example located on a busy road I
Used to walk past this tree every day on my way to work when we were still at the office this year it’s home to Corn gromwell this plant is on the GB red list and was quite happily growing alongside the busy Main Road on a site probably regularly overlooked for plant
Surveys but spotted by an enthusiastic ey naturous user not myself and must dad but you know just someone who who picked up high Ness and just Keen to record and looking on those Pavements and cracks in between so this this sample is only four observations on anatas and in on the mbn
Atlas only 21 have been recorded since 2020 these for examples show how unstructured random recording by natural isues can also yield interesting results for example the watermelon who would have thought that an urban scrub behind swimwear manufacturer Speedos HQ would be a potential sight for anum’s first wild watermelon Farm false London
Rocket okay this example is growing outside no’s Ice Arena it is common in the industrial areas of this city and also no doubt elsewhere but the nosan variant is actually unusual because it’s totally hairless in June this year I was contacted by two prominent nature photographers asking for the best place
To take phot phot for their new book so you’re going to look out for a photo of their nium false London rocket located near the tip um by a tied Cash and Carry with a shopping trolley in the background it was the best glamorous location I could find for
Them also the European Orchard be now this is a good example of the iist community at work I think in 2020 Hannah a casual Inc user took part in the City nature challenge while stuck at home like the rest of us and by chance AB be decided to land on
Her bed bathroom window and lay down and die sadly but she took a photo she used the naturist ID tool and shared the record of the European or should be but actually was it if correct it would be a first for the area and it generated a
Lot of interest on and off I naturalist I emailed her and said you know has she still got the be unfortunately no she checked out out the window never mind okay in April this year 3 years later got an excited email from her I found another one and I’ve kept the specimen
We were able to ask Trevor penderton who some of you may know for making Birds to identify it this allowed us to assume that the original citing was correct and therefore a new local record so we know that anatas has been embraced in the UK by a wide variety of
People and organ organizations all infused to record and share their Wildlife sightings however we don’t actually really know much about them or have done an in analysis of their data so for future plans we’ll be working with exter universi part of their Renu project to carry out an
In-depth analysis of the data and also the users so if you’re an inous user please look out for that and if you do get um a survey please respond um we’ve been developing a strategy to try and leverage more funding to allow us to tell those data stories
And also educate users um to help improve the records and also the data flow we’ll continue to work with yourselves as well with the recording Community widely to improve data flow and the quality of the records and finally I lus UK we’re excited that we’re going to be part of the education
Nature Park sweeter tools and we’re learning a bit more about that following this talk so thank you very much and [Applause] um and finally for this session session three we have Lucy Robinson citizen science manager from Natural History Museum thank you oh that’s not my first
Slide do I need this stand I’m going for it hi thanks for inviting me to speak today I’m really proud to be introducing a new project that builds on the long-term partnership that the Natural History Museum has had with the NBN trust uh and I’m particularly excited about this new
Project because it combines citizen science or Community science as we now call it the Natural History Museum with actually taking action to improve the situation for nature and actually work towards nature recovery and that’s a real shift for us in our Community Science Program uh to move on from
Studying nature to really pairing that with action so I’m Lucy Robinson I’m Deputy head of the center for UK nature at the Museum and I also lead our community Science Program there’s quite a few members of our team here so please go and see our stand in the coffee break we
Cover quite a range of different areas related to UK nature and this particular project today really weaves together the community science UK nature recovery and that skills development piece so the new program is called the National Education Nature Park it’s an England wide partnership funded by uh the government’s department for
Education and I’m speaking on behalf of a big partnership here the rhs uh are our other big delivery partner and our Northeast Regional team are here and there’s a whole range of other partners who are supporting this program alongside a wider pool of stakeholders uh that includes many of the organizations in this
Room so why is the department for Education funding biological recording or nature recovery so they have had a realization that they have influence over a great deal of land all of the land that schools nurseries and colleges are on in this country really adds up
And we also know that as well as uh improving Green Space is good for nature it’s good for young people and it develops their skills towards these skill sets uh in stem that we know is a future skills need so the department for education has funded us for 5 years um
But they very much see this as a long-term program that will exist beyond that point and the overall aim of the program really is in line with also the Museum’s mission to create advocates for the planet it’s about people connecting with nature learning about nature and then developing this sense of agency
That they can take action so our overall program goals um the kind of first and foremost one is to achieve biodiversity gain across the educational estate and that Greening and enhancing biodiversity uh obviously is good for our environment but we know that it’s good for young people’s well-being and
Mental health so they spend a lot of their time in schools so making schools Greener more biodiverse spaces is good for our young people too we have only launched last month so it’s very early days so so this is very much an introductory talk and many details of this program are not yet
Finalized but we’ve been really pleased with the response so far and more than a thousand settings have now signed up um to take part and there’s a nice Geographic spread across England there so we’ve been pleased with the early uptake so what does the program look
Like if you’re a teacher uh or a young person we have this five-step uh cycle so first they explore their site they get to know their site um get comfortable with spending time Outdoors learning in nature uh doing that year round not just in the summer and understanding what does their site
Currently offer for nature and for themselves and then they’ll work through a process of identifying opportunities to enhance their site bringing in lots of different parts of the curriculum with creativity citizenship maths geography um collect decision making and then actually making those changes on their site and monitoring uh the impacts
Of their actions and then continuing in this uh cycle um of them thinking what’s the next Improvement that we could make so on our website we have a range of resources and activities um that teachers can filter and choose from there’s essentially a spine of community science that runs through the program of
Gathering data uh using those data to make informed evidence-driven decisions and enhancing your site and wrapped around that is a whole Suite of Engagement activities that speak to these different parts of the curriculum um and bring in lots of fun and creativity that wrap around this program um as young people work through
It so focusing a little bit on the data side of this uh the first task that we’re asking uh settings to do is to outline their site so to Define this is our space that we’re going to work on and then they’ll be mapping their existing habitats next week we’re
Releasing our habitat mapping resources so they’re going to get an understanding of what is their Baseline what’s their starting point from which to measure any change or any gains they’ll then be studying what’s living on their site and then planning and implementing those interventions and monitoring as I
Say so this habitat mapping has been adapted from UK Habs and the urban Greening Factor um they can create Maps like this there’s a ezri is our partner on this program and they’re developing mapping tools um to help schools map their sites and we’ve developed a suite of
Resources then that support that so there are activities that support young people to understand Core Concepts that they need to know is a tree deciduous or Evergreen um about percentage coverage of different plants ET Etc and then a series of habitat identification resources that support them uh to know
What habitat they’ve got and then they will use a digital tool to map it once the habitat stuff is launched we’ll be moving on to uh planning our biodiversity surveys so from the spring um schools will be starting to gather biodiversity data some of this will be
Habitat specific surveys uh some will be more uh broader biological recording using in naturalist um and we’ll be developing also some habitat condition assessments so as well as recording species they can record in changes to management techniques that they make on their site I’ll skip over that one because I’m
Conscious I’m short on time so in terms of data flow I think we’re very much at this Cal pH of this catastrophic success of many many young people uh recording data the purpose of this program is that every young person in this country does citizen science does biological recording as part of
Their education so the data will be held by ezri and we’re very conscious that we don’t want to overwhelm and flood existing systems beyond their capacity so we will be kind of curating where data flow on and making sure that only the good quality or data that um National schemes and societies have
Capacity to receive flows through but it’s important to say that all of the data is ct0 licensed so they will all be publicly available and open for use and will be managing that process of where they flow onto um so that we don’t overwhelm existing systems so our core uh objective is to
Measure biodiversity gain or to achieve an increase in biodiversity on the educational estate so how are we actually going to measure that um we have a couple of post-doctoral researches within the program one of which is Victoria Burton sitting in the middle wave Victoria so in the next few months
Victoria will be uh working with the wider team to develop a research plan of how can we evidence these changes some of these uh are quite measurable and we can we can quantify that but others right you plant a tree you don’t suddenly see a massive increase in biodiversity these are
Longer term gains so we’ll also be using data modeling techniques to predict those longer term uh likely gains that can’t be measured within the time frame of our program so I invite you all to join us and by that I mean with your biodiversity hats on many of your
Organizations are potential partners and stakeholders for us um please be patient with us because we have many many stakeholders across biodiversity and education and sustainability sectors but we really do want to work across the sector but also taking off your biodiversity hats many people in this room will be parents grandparents Aunts
Uncles governors of your local school please encourage uh the schools that you know or your local schools to participate um in this program it’s for every nursery school or college in England so uh we certainly have a very very wide remit to cover so I’ll close
There thank you very much for your time and uh I hope to come back with more datadriven um updates at future conferences this is the introduction early days and I hope we’ll be sharing lots of successes of nature gains um in future years so thanks very much