Green groups launch defence of Habitats Regulations

(by Karma Loveday)

As MPs return to Westminster after a summer of drought and wildfires, The Wildlife Trusts have published a staunch defence of the Habitats Regulations, which it argued have repeatedly been under political fire, but which are crucial for the nation’s resilience to weather extremes.

The nature group cited “successive government attacks on England’s most effective nature protections” including via the Planning and Infrastructure Act in 2025, and the Nuclear Regulation Bill which was announced in the May 2026 King’s speech and has been inherited by the Burnham administration.

In a new report, What have the Habitats Regulations ever done for us? the campaigner evidenced how healthy nature provides a buffer against the immediate impacts of climate change through a range of services, including keeping water in the landscape to guard against wildfire and drought, and providing cooler spaces for people during repeated heatwaves. It argued that any further weakening of the Habitats Regulations would diminish these climate change protections further, leaving much of England even more exposed to dangerous weather.

The debate is directly relevant for water. In a related development, WildFish has criticised Water UK’s recent Barriers to project delivery report, which highlights obstacles hindering the water industry from delivering agreed programmes and strategic water resource schemes and hence supporting good societal outcomes and growth. WildFish said: “Rather than asking how we can build infrastructure while protecting rivers and wildlife, the report repeatedly argues that environmental protections themselves are the problem. Its proposed solutions include weakening the Habitats Regulations, which serves to protect and conserve the UK’s rare and vulnerable sites and species.”

WildFish said that this, along with other proposals discussed in the Water UK report, “are not minor procedural reforms. They represent a fundamental attempt to weaken the legal safeguards that protect some of our most important rivers, wetlands and endangered species, such as Atlantic salmon”.

Matt Browne, head of public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, said: “For decades, the Habitats Regulations have protected rare, threatened, or valuable natural habitats and wildlife across the country, offering flickers of hope against a backdrop of widespread nature decline and bringing economic, health and social benefits to communities across the country… the Prime Minister must drop this discredited nature-bashing approach, reconsider the nature-harming Nuclear Bill inherited from Starmer, and focus instead on boosting national security in the face of accelerating environmental threats.”