Conclusions and recommendations

BRANCH evidence confirms that there is an urgent need for spatial planners to act now to ensure that wildlife can respond to the impacts of climate change. The project’s final report summarises the project’s research findings and recommends how current planning practices should be improved to incorporate adaptation to climate change.

The project concludes that spatial planning should encourage measures that enable species and habitats to adapt to climate change. Some existing policies could be useful if they were implemented. But the present system has serious limitations and new approaches are needed.

Final key recommendations are broken down into three levels of action:

Five recommendations for European policy leadership

1. Produce a vision for Europe’s biodiversity which provides wildlife with future space to adapt to climate change. This would set the direction that planners and practitioners need.
2. Reinterpret the EC Habitats Directive so that it can be implemented flexibly to protect wildlife in Natura 2000 sites. In future, the Directive should:
   • Allow, where necessary, protected wildlife in a site to change over time while ensuring these species or habitats are retained elsewhere in the Natura 2000 network, by encouraging co-operation between EU Member States.
   • Establish rolling, variable boundaries for mobile sites, for example, on eroding coasts.
3. Increase connectivity between Natura 2000 sites making it easier for species to move. This should be achieved by implementing Article 10 of the Habitats Directive. BRANCH has shown that increased connectivity will enable wildlife to respond more resiliently to climate change.
4. Promote collaboration between different sectors involved in land use planning. Biodiversity will not be able to adapt to climate change if it is restricted to isolated protected sites. Agriculture, coastal and flood protection and well-planned infrastructure developments could benefit biodiversity by promoting (and not impeding) connectivity.
5. Integrate climate change into European Directives such as the Strategic Environmental Assessment, Environmental Impact Assessment and Water Framework Directives. This would provide guidance and encourage plans and projects to incorporate adaptation to the impacts of climate change. It would also give guidance to planners and support for adaptation policies.

Five recommendations for national spatial planning and policy guidance

1. Change the spatial planning system to ensure that planners can take account of the long-term effects of their decisions. BRANCH found that planners do not currently have the support or tools to consider longer timescales. Adaptation to the impacts of climate change should not be constrained by short-term decision-making.
2. Allow land to be set aside for future use by wildlife. This could be achieved by spatial planning policies or mechanisms such as co-ordinated land banking. This is particularly urgent at the coast where a strategic overview is needed to ensure that coastal habitats have space to move inland as sea-levels rise.
3. Use fiscal and legal incentives to encourage different sectors to implement adaptation policies. The BRANCH policy review showed that the current approach often depends on partnerships and is slow to produce results.
4. Promote a national spatial vision for biodiversity in a changing climate in England and France. This should encourage a network of well-managed designated sites connected across a wildlife-friendly wider countryside. The vision would give stakeholders the leadership they need. In the Netherlands, test the National Ecological Network, using BRANCH’s Limburg example, against the potential impacts of climate change. Revise the Network if necessary.
5. Co-operate between sectors and across administrative boundaries, including with other EU Member States, to implement adaptation measures for wildlife. Ensure there is also integration between different planning levels.

Five recommendations for regional and local spatial planners

1. Raise awareness of the benefits of the natural environment to society. Show how spatial planning can create, support and maintain healthy ecosystems. This is a first step to help increase wildlife’s resilience to climate change.
2. Use policies in spatial plans to create a landscape that enables wildlife to adapt to climate change. This means establishing larger and richer habitat areas that are better connected. It also means avoiding planning decisions which fragment areas with habitat value.
3. Identify strategically important places where habitats can be created to offset losses caused by climate change. These locations should be safeguarded from development by policies in regional and local plans. BRANCH has shown that unless this happens, habitats will become increasingly vulnerable and unable to adapt to climate change.
4. Inform decision-making with an evidence base that includes policy recommendations, visualisations and planning tools. BRANCH has produced transferable materials, training and techniques that can help.
5. Ensure adequate, consistent long-term datasets are available. BRANCH has shown that a lack of good data, especially across administrative boundaries, makes decision-making difficult. Policy making must also be informed by reviewing the actual impacts of climate change and monitoring the effectiveness of adaptation measures.