Registering a Nature Investment Zone
Complete NIZ Registration
Building a Strategic Nature Network
The Strategic Nature Network (SNN) will be a national spatial framework designed to guide land-use decisions by recognising nature as critical infrastructure. It will identify priority areas where nature should be protected, restored and better connected, following the Lawton principles of more, bigger, better and more joined-up space for nature.
SNN 1.0 due for publication on 5th June 2026 will build on existing mapping initiatives, expanding the analysis across the UK to create a coherent national picture of the most significant opportunities for nature recovery. Strategic national layers will then highlight the largest opportunities for landscape-scale restoration, helping to coordinate public and private investment.
NIZ Identification Principles
With this strategic connectivity approach in mind, At this initial phase, the identification of potential Nature Investment Zones (NIZs) will be largely principles-led based on the essential concepts drawn from the Lawton principles, and driven by opportunity to deliver scaled impact, these are:
- Operating at Ecosystem Scale (linked to investible scale)
- Restarting Natural Processes
- Experienced Coalition Delivery
Initial NIZs will therefore be identified based on meaningful geographic scale facilitated by coalitions of the willing, demonstrating the potential to deliver at least 10,000 hectares of accumulated [current or future] Strategic Nature Network [SNN] Core Zone [nature protection and/or restoration areas whose explicit objective is to enable the future reinstatement of natural processes as the foundation for functioning, resilient ecosystems].
Inform the Strategic Nature Network
The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) has been awarded a contract to deliver a strategic study for National Highways. This study will be delivered through a partnership with Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT – acting secretariat to Rebuilding Nature) to inform Nature Investment Zones, the foundational building blocks of the Strategic Nature Network.
Whilst Rebuilding Nature is developing a Strategic Nature Network across the UK, the scope and goal of this survey is to draw on specialist expertise across legal, financial, ecological, spatial and policy domains to inform the development of the Strategic Nature Network in England, and to create a blueprint for Nature Investment Zones by gathering examples of good practice and setting out scopes for emerging Nature Investment Zones to begin their development planning.
Our approach is collaborative to support the ethos of making sense of wide-ranging initiatives, approaches and delivery to convene collective and coordinated cross-boundary delivery.
Submission deadline: 3rd April 2026