Independent report

ESRT: Year 2 review and look forward to 2025 and 2026

Updated 26 March 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

The second year of the England Species Reintroductions Taskforce has focused on the delivery of advice and guidance, completing the first round of stakeholder engagements, making progress with key enablers for more and better translocations, such as the online hub and database, and promoting the Taskforce’s work through our communications.

Meetings

As planned, we held 4 face-to-face meetings throughout the year hosted by Forestry England in the Forest of Dean, by Zoological Society of London (ZSL) at Whipsnade Zoo, by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Forestry England on the Isle of Wight and at Liverpool John Moore’s University. These locations enabled Taskforce members to experience and engage with issues such as fenced beaver enclosures, wild boar management and pine marten reintroduction in the Forest of Dean, ecosystem management to enable species recovery, white-tailed Eagle reintroduction to southern England, conservation breeding of native species by the zoo community, and a range of translocation research projects presented by staff and students at Liverpool John Moore’s University.

We have invited speakers to our meetings including Jamie Kingscott Edwards (Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust) presenting the results of ‘Project Pine Marten’, David Simcox (Royal Entomological Society), who gave a presentation on the re-introduction of the globally endangered Large blue butterfly), Martin Gaywood (NatureScot), who presented key messages from his Churchill Fellowship on conservation translocations and Filippo Marino (University of Leeds) who presented the results of the barriers and enablers study commissioned by the Taskforce. The Chair of Natural England joined 2 of our meetings ensuring that our work is appropriately contextualised in wider ambition about nature recovery. Our meetings are also attended by members of NatureScot, and we engage with the National Species Reintroduction Forum north of the border.

Advisory work

The Taskforce is pleased to have formed a panel of 8 international experts to peer review its work.

The Taskforce is working on 4 main workstreams:

1. Barriers and enablers to conservation translocations research (in peer review, report due April 2025). Preliminary results were presented at conferences in Spain and Italy in 2024.
2. Perceptions on the challenges and opportunities from the restoration of the predator guild in England (in peer review, report due April 2025).
3. Development of an assisted colonisation framework for species - with the growing threat to biodiversity posed by climate change, diseases and invasive species, we need to consider assisted colonisation, both within Britain and from elsewhere in Europe, for highly threatened species that need assistance to relocate to suitable conditions and form insurance populations for the future.
4. The establishment of a database and online hub that captures translocation activity across the UK, and spreads best practice. The database is being developed by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and is currently under testing with stakeholders. Once completed, it should also stimulate further engagement of a wide network of interested organisations and individuals and ensure greater accessibility to the best data, advice and guidance for undertaking successful translocations.

Stakeholder engagement

The Taskforce held very productive and wide-ranging round-table discussions with:

• zoos and BIAZA (British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums) members
• government bodies including Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), NatureScot, Natural Resources Wales (NRW), Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)
• botanists including representatives from Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, Natural England, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI), National Trust, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Natural History Museum and Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh

The Chair attended a parliamentary reception in January 2025 hosted by BIAZA to celebrate their Great British Wildlife Restoration programme which brings together zoos, aquariums, and other conservation organizations to work collaboratively on a range of projects, from captive breeding programs for endangered species to habitat restoration and community engagement.

The Taskforce is becoming much more widely known and appreciated, being approached for advice and guidance, and to participate in external events. Members of the Taskforce took part in a panel discussion at the British Ornithologist’s Union conference in November 2024.

The Chair has presented to the Citizen Zoo Rewilding Conference held in Cambridge at the start of 2025 and given an interview to the Economist magazine.

The Taskforce was represented at a workshop hosted by Kent Wildlife Trust, using Structured Decision-making to assist with the prioritisation of conservation translocations across the wider Blean landscape in Kent and contributed to a discussion on developing performance indicators for conservation translocations led by Kent and Oxford Universities.

Most recently the Taskforce was a key participant in and partly funded a workshop organised by ZSL and Natural England to explore the findings of our report on the Barriers and Enablers to More and Better Translocations as well as exploring the appetite for the creation of a collaborative network of practitioners to support the hub. This event brought together a diversity of organisations working in, and interested in, this field of conservation techniques, and has helped to build a community of practice to assist in taking forward the Taskforce’s work.

The Taskforce communicates online (England Species Reintroductions Taskforce - GOV.UK) and our LinkedIn account launched in July 2024 which at the time of writing had reached almost 1,000 followers. The LinkedIn account enables the Taskforce members and invited guests to blog about and bring issues of importance to a wider audience. Topics covered so far include ‘The English Code for reintroductions’ (Jeremy Sabel, Natural England), ‘Illicit and unregulated reintroductions’ (George Holmes, University of Leeds), ‘Cirl Buntings’ (Mike Shurmer, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and ‘Should conservation translocations really be an option of last resort?’ (Sarah Dalrymple, Liverpool John Moores University) and there are many more blogs planned.

Future plans

As we move into our third year, Defra has confirmed that they wish the Taskforce to continue its work for at least a further 3 years. In addition, Andy Clements has been asked to continue as Chair. We are indebted to the hard work of all the members of the Taskforce. Currently the members are being canvassed as to whether they are willing to continue and there is an aim to balance continuity with an element of fresh faces at the table.

Future workstreams and priorities will likely include:

• working on removing barriers to more and better conservation translocations
• exploring how conservation translocations best contribute to the biodiversity targets
• setting up a network of practitioners
• rolling out a database and online hub to make accurate data and guidance more accessible
• further work on the perceptions of the predator guild in England
• further work and guidance on assisted colonisation
• collaborating on a PhD investigating the ecological and social aspects of illicit and unlicensed species reintroductions
• decision support framework tools to help projects take considered decisions at each step of the process
• stakeholder engagement to explore themes such as where conservation translocations fit into species recovery; the contribution of conservation translocations to the legislative biodiversity targets on abundance and extinction; and performance indicators and measures of success

We are very grateful to Natural England who provide an outstanding secretariat to the Taskforce, both in terms of logistical support and in enabling discussion of important principles and identifying best practice. Defra officials are also highly supportive and, at the time of writing, are looking to engage the Chair in discussions of future Taskforce priorities with the minister.

March 2025