That is the message behind the launch today of the Strategic Nature Network (SNN) 1.0 by the Rebuilding Nature alliance: a growing cross-sector coalition bringing together organisations and leaders across sectors around a shared national mission to rebuild the UK’s natural infrastructure.
At a time when the country is experiencing increasing heatwaves, flooding, drought pressures and growing concern over climate resilience, water security and public wellbeing, the Strategic Nature Network offers a practical and hopeful vision for the future: reconnecting nature at national scale so that it can once again support thriving communities, resilient economies and healthier lives.
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Decades of habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation have weakened the natural systems that regulate water, cool towns and cities, support farming, store carbon, protect wildlife and underpin human health and wellbeing. But the solutions are already well understood. We need more, bigger, better and more joined-up habitats.
Across the country, thousands of organisations, farmers, landowners, local authorities and communities are already restoring rivers, peatlands, wetlands, woodlands, urban green spaces and wildlife habitats. The challenge is not a lack of action, it is the lack of a shared national framework capable of connecting these efforts into a coherent and resilient ecological network at the scale required. That is the purpose of the Strategic Nature Network.
The SNN provides a long-term national framework to help align restoration efforts, planning, investment and infrastructure and societal resilience around a shared vision for rebuilding nature as critical national infrastructure; an essential counterpart to our transport, energy, water and digital networks.
The modelling behind the Strategic Nature Network (SNN) starts to quantify the true scale of the UK’s natural infrastructure opportunity. 3.9 million hectares of restoration corridors would help create a fully connected national nature network capable of supporting biodiversity recovery, climate adaptation, water resilience and long-term economic and societal resilience. The benefits of delivering the SNN are valued at hundreds of billions.
Restored to good ecological condition, the core land area of the SNN could generate an additional £600 Billion in benefits.
The climate value is equally significant. The terrestrial SNN v1 currently locks up approximately 8.5 million tonnes of CO₂ each year, over 50 years valued at over £125 billion. Building the English terrestrial restoration zone could remove more than 300 million tonnes of CO₂ over 50 years, worth a further £24 billion.
The benefits extend far beyond biodiversity and carbon. The Strategic Nature Network would reduce flood and drought risk, cool towns and cities during heatwaves, improve water quality, strengthen food and farming resilience, support pollinators and wildlife, create healthier places to live and increase people’s access to nature and green space.
It would also help protect infrastructure, reduce long-term economic risk and create new opportunities for strategic public-private investment through Nature Investment Zones — place-based delivery areas capable of blending public funding and private capital into long-term restoration and stewardship.
Importantly, this is not about replacing local initiatives. It is about connecting and strengthening them so that together they become something transformational: a functioning national ecological network capable of supporting future generations.
The growing alliance behind the Strategic Nature Network reflects increasing recognition across sectors that healthy natural systems are not a “nice to have” but the foundation for long-term prosperity, resilience and national security.
Rebuilding Nature is inviting organisations, investors, policymakers, infrastructure operators, land managers and communities to help shape and build the Strategic Nature Network together.
View the SNN 1.0 Brochure: Rebuilding Nature SNN 1.0 Brochure 2026
For more information visit: www.rebuildingnature.com
