SoNaRR 2025 Aim 2: Ecosystems are resilient to expected and unforeseen change

Natural Resources Wales

This webpage is part of the State of Natural Resources Report 2025

Wales stands at a turning point. The latest evidence from SoNaRR 2025 confirms SoNaRR 2020 and what many have sensed: our ecosystems are struggling to withstand the pressures from how we manage the land in Wales. Biodiversity is in decline, natural systems are under strain, and the landscapes that sustain health, prosperity, and culture are struggling to adapt to new and existing pressures.

Understanding and assessing ecosystem resilience is central to Wales’ ability to respond to environmental pressures and deliver the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (SMNR). This Aim 2 assessment explores the ecological importance of semi-natural habitats, those most critical for resilient ecosystems. It also presents the Diversity, Extent, Condition and Connectivity (DECCA) framework used to assess resilience across ecosystems. Together, these elements provide the foundation for understanding how resilient Wales’ ecosystems are to expected and unforeseen change.

Vision

Along with governments across the world, the Welsh Government has committed to halting and reversing the loss of nature. 

Wales will achieve this through a comprehensive network of healthy, and resilient ecosystems. Through sustainable land management and a regenerative economy, harmful pollution is eliminated, we will halt and reverse biodiversity loss, ensuring our landscapes provide enhanced wellbeing benefits and consistently deliver vital ecosystem services for the health and prosperity of future generations.

Delivering on this vision will advance the Well-being of Future Generations goals and contributes to progress against the National Indicators for: Areas of healthy ecosystems in Wales (Indicator 43), and Status of biological diversity in Wales (Indicator 44).

Key messages

Wales’ ecosystems are not resilient, urgent action is needed to reverse decline and build adaptive capacity

SoNaRR 2025 confirms that ecosystem resilience remains low across most habitats, including terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Semi-natural habitats have declined in extent and condition, and marine assessments show significant pressures from pollution, climate change, and unregulated development. Without transformative change, resilience will continue to erode, threatening biodiversity, ecosystem services, and long-term well-being.

Land use is one of the most significant and persistent drivers of ecosystem degradation

Decades of intensive land use, particularly agricultural intensification and urban expansion, have fragmented habitats and degraded soils and water, resulting in pollution across land, freshwater and sea. Strategic land and sea use planning is essential to restore resilience.

Climate change is accelerating ecosystem pressures and driving cascading effects

Climate change is now a dominant driver of change across all ecosystems. It interacts with and amplifies other pressures, such as habitat fragmentation, pollution, and invasive species, reducing the ability of ecosystems to recover, adapt, and continue delivering essential services. In marine systems, warming is increasingly likely to drive changes in species distribution and ecosystem structure which must be considered in marine spatial planning and infrastructure development. Nature-based solutions, such as restoring and improving habitat condition, improving connectivity, and integrating climate adaptation into planning, can turn climate risks into opportunities for building resilient, thriving ecosystems.

Resilience must be built across the whole landscape and seascape, not just in protected sites

Protected sites are vital anchors for biodiversity, but real resilience depends on connecting these sites through well-designed Resilient Ecological Networks (RENs) and ecologically coherent Marine Protected Area (MPA) networks. Delivering resilience at scale requires landscape and seascape-scale partnerships.

Farmers and land managers are central to delivering ecosystem resilience

With over 90% of Wales’ land under agricultural use land managers are key protagonists in restoring nature. The Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023 and planning frameworks provide tools to support them, not just as producers, but as stewards of biodiversity and climate resilience.

Regulation and incentives must work together to secure long-term success

Regulation is not a barrier; it is a safeguard. Stronger Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) rules, pollution controls, and planning policies are needed to protect sensitive habitats. Long-term funding is essential to provide management certainty. Ecological recovery takes time and cannot be measured within short project cycles.

Wales’ nature targets must drive delivery, not just ambition

The commitment to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve recovery by 2050 is bold. Statutory nature targets must be measurable, time-bound, and embedded across sectors. Future SoNaRRs must demonstrate what has been delivered.

Evidence gaps must not delay action, but monitoring is essential for accountability

New evidence since SoNaRR 2020, such as the potential scale of deterioration in MPA features due to coastal squeeze, highlights the need for robust monitoring. While gaps remain, especially in resilience and species recovery, Wales must act using the best available evidence. Monitoring must be embedded within investment for nature recovery.

Ecosystem resilience and nature-based solutions must be place-based

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are most effective when designed to address local pressures and opportunities, while enhancing ecosystem resilience. Area Statements provide a framework for delivering NbS and embedding ecosystem resilience into marine and terrestrial planning, funding, and delivery.

Wales must move beyond protection, to nature recovery and enhancement

The shift from protection to recovery is essential. Delivering this ambition will require coordinated investment from both public and private finance. Mechanisms such as the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) provide structured support for land managers to effectively manage and restore habitats, improve biodiversity, and deliver public goods. At the same time, emerging opportunities around health, economy and private finance also offer new ways to engage communities and unlock long-term restoration funding. By aligning financial tools with nature targets and resilience goals, Wales can move from ambition to delivery, restoring ecosystems across land and sea.

Read the full Aim 2: Ecosystems are resilient to expected and unforeseen change assessment in our State of Natural Resources Report 2025.

Read this assessment

Explore our assessment of the Diversity, Extent, Condition and Connectivity (DECC) in Wales’ ecosystems through our SoNaRR 2025 Evidence portal.

 

Evidence needs

SoNaRR 2025 highlights persistent evidence gaps that hinder delivery:

  • Lack of condition data for protected sites.
  • Incomplete spatial data on semi-natural habitats and ecosystem services.
  • Insufficient monitoring of agricultural pollution and land-use change.

Resilient Ecological Networks (RENs), co-designed with stakeholders, are a key delivery mechanism for ecosystem resilience. The identification and mapping of RENs is a core evidence need, and essential to any future land-use strategy.

RENs provide the evidence base to align spatial planning, nature-based solutions and policy objectives with the delivery of SMNR Aim 2, ensuring ecosystems are resilient to expected and unforeseen change.

RENs offer a practical mechanism to integrate biodiversity, climate adaptation, and sustainable land management into decision-making across sectors, helping Wales meet its statutory nature targets and commitments such as 30by30.

Key evidence sources

Explore some of the evidence we have used to inform our assessment:

Case studies 

The Wild Oysters project

The Wild Oysters project is aiming to restore Britain’s seas to health through the restoration of the native oyster. The project is a national collaboration, led by the Zoological Society of London, Blue Marine Foundation and British Marine, working with the marine industry and local communities and organisations, to deliver restoration including sites in Wales.

Conwy Bay – Wild Oysters project

 

The National Peatland Action Programme

The National Peatland Action Programme is a 5-year plan of peatland restoration in Wales, 2020 – 2025. Restoration action on over 1650 hectares in the first two years means the programme surpassed its initial restoration targets of 600-800 hectares of public and private land every year.

Natural Resources Wales / The National Peatland Action Programme

 

Resilient Ecological Networks in Gwent

The Gwent Green Grid Partnership (GGGP) in collaboration with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and a wide range of local partners and stakeholders, is designing and developing Resilient Ecological Networks (RENs) across Gwent. This work follows the guidance set out in the NRW Practitioners’ Guide to Resilient Ecological Networks and is being co-designed through collaborative mapping workshops and stakeholder engagement. These RENs will help shape the future of nature recovery delivery in the region.

Resilient Ecological Networks – Monlife

Natural Resources Wales / Practitioners’ guide to Resilient Ecological Networks

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