What are Restoration Priorities?
A restoration priority is a site where partners/stakeholders would like to see action to benefit biodiversity by restoring higher levels of natural function. Natural function relates to the ability of a river or lake to shape and sustain natural habitat mosaics free from constraints imposed by physical, hydrological, chemical or direct biological modifications. They should be highlighted where action is considered to be most important. This is not a commitment by the proposer to undertake the envisaged restoration activity, but a way to highlight where opportunities to restore natural function exists. However, it should be more than a wish-list and should be guided by what is practically achievable, using a long-term perspective to tackle constraints if required.
There is no expectation that feasibility studies have been undertaken, but a site should not be included if there are obvious and immovable local constraints preventing the required restoration. There are no limits to the number of priorities that can be identified, but you are encouraged to think about large and small lakes, rivers and streams in your area, including wetland habitats that would be associated with them when functioning naturally – for instance, headwater mire-stream habitat mosaics, spring-fed flushes, floodplain wetland mosaics and lake hydroseres. Note that opportunities for restoring natural ecosystem function are often far greater in streams and small lakes with their associated small catchments, because of the potential to restore the whole catchment to naturally functioning habitat mosaics and the more limited consequences of restoration on adjacent land uses and management.
View this 2021 CaBA webinar from the launch of the project:
Please keep in mind the project is always evolving based on user feedback and this video may not be completely up to date on all aspects of restoration priorities. It does however provide a great background!
How to add restoration priorities
This facility allows authorised individuals to enter the locations of priorities for restoring natural habitat function to rivers/streams and lakes. The process enables local proposals for practical action to be fed into strategic nature recovery priorities and also provides additional support to measures that restore natural function within the Water Framework Directive river basin management plans.
The guidance below explains what restoration action is appropriate for inclusion and how to enter priorities on the data portal.
Guidance on adding river/stream and lake restoration priorities
It is possible to add restoration priorities as an individual or as part of a group project where a number of people can input priorities and co-ordinate their views.
If you work in Natural England or the Environment Agency or are an invited expert wishing to enter restoration priorities simply fill in the form below and you will receive an invite from cartographer, allowing to you set up your account. This is a manual process and may take some time depending on staff workload. If you think your request has been missed, please contact priorityhabitats@fba.org.uk rather than completing another form.
If you are part of an organisation or group that would like to work together on highlighting restoration priorities, contact the Cartographer team at hello@cartographer.io and they will contact you and get you set up with a group workspace that enables you to do this together – note you will need to nominate a workspace coordinator. A number of workspaces have already been set up for individual Catchment Partnerships and there is the capacity to set up more.
To get access to a group workspace you need a username and password, which you can get from your group workspace coordinator. Just ask to join your group’s restoration priorities workspace.
Once you have received your username and password you can sign in via the button below and add your views on restoration priorities in the online form.