Nature conservation solely focussed on protecting threatened species and habitats is no longer sufficient.
A new paper co-authored by Prof Lynn Dicks, leader of Zoology's Agroecology Group argues that protecting the functions and processes of whole ecosystems might better conserve their constituent parts.
Published in Conservation Letters, the paper examines how “process-based approaches” can work alongside existing mechanisms for nature protection. Rather than concentrating solely on individual species or sites, these approaches are larger scale, involving whole ecosystems and the people that interact with them. The authors argue that protecting whole ecosystems and their functions can help safeguard many of their constituent species by default.
To illustrate how the coupling can work, the paper provides eight examples of policies from terrestrial and marine conservation that operate at larger landscape and seascape scales and derives four principles for successful process-based conservation.
The principles include creating regulation that can flex to allow pragmatism in local interpretation and delivery, as well as developing new legislation and intentional policy mechanisms that can scale regulation to encompass ecological processes.
Natural England's new strategy, Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security, embodies this shift to coupled mechanisms that recover natural processes as well as protecting rare and special species.
Dicks, L. V., C. Fitzsimmons, and S. Bailey. 2026. “ Recovering Ecosystems As Well As Their Constituent Parts.” Conservation Letters 19, no. 5: e70088. https://doi.org/10.1111/con4.70088
Image: Norfolk hawker Photo by Christian Fischer/Wikimedia Commons
The Norfolk, or 'green-eyed' hawker is a good example of why nature conservation based purely on protecting individual species is challenged by global environmental change.
This species has the strongest legal protection in the UK. It's a criminal offense to damage it, or its habitat. It used to be restricted to a few very special sites, but it has expanded its range dramatically in the last couple of decades and is now found in many unprotected sites, including a few suburban parks and residential gardens. This makes garden pond protection a legal duty for some people, with potential for criminality if they get it wrong. It's a real conundrum for conservation regulation, because we must (and do) celebrate the success of the Norfolk hawker and welcome it as it moves around the country.
This article was originally published on the Department of Zoology website on 1 October 2026:
https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/news/beyond-species-and-habitats-rethinking-nature-conservation