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Norfolk Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) now adopted
The Norfolk LNRS was adopted by the Council on 27 November 2025, following a Cabinet recommendation (11 November 2025).
The 2021 Environment Act places a range of legal duties upon local authorities, including a requirement to produce and adopt a Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS).
The Norfolk LNRS has been created to help plan what, where and how we can all take action for nature across the region. Nature's recovery is no easy feat so this guides where actions could have the biggest impact. The LNRS sets out how we, working with wildlife groups and communities, can bring back more wildlife, improve our natural places, and help people and nature thrive together. It provides:
- A shared vision and plan for restoring nature in Norfolk.
- A mapping tool showing where action will achieve the greatest benefits.
- A guide for investment, planning, land management, and community projects.
- A framework for collective action across all sectors (i.e. genuine partnership working).
Further information, including the published Norfolk LNRS document and Local Habitat Map, is available through the County Council’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy web page.
Other information is available through the Norfolk and Suffolk nature recovery partnership website.
If you have any queries please contact naturalnorfolk@norfolk.gov.uk.
Key messages
Norfolk's Local Nature Recovery Strategy identifies priorities and actions for restoring and enhancing nature across the county.
What the Local Nature Recovery Strategy does
Norfolk's Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) identifies priorities and actions for restoring and enhancing nature across the county. It was created by Norfolk County Council in collaboration with landowners and farmers, conservation experts and local communities.
Norfolk is home to many important species and spaces for nature, but these are often isolated and fragmented. The LNRS will play a crucial role in reversing biodiversity loss, helping adapt to a changing climate and ensuring sustainable land use that benefits people and wildlife.
The strategy was developed in partnership with Suffolk County Council under the Norfolk and Suffolk Nature Recovery Partnership. Across the country 48 LNRS's are being created, together they will form a national framework for nature recovery.
What the Local Nature Recovery Strategy will not do
- Force land managers to make the suggested changes - the LNRS is a guide which can be used when making decisions about what to do with land, some of the mapped sites have multiple different suggestions for how it could be managed.
- Block new developments - they will be only one source of evidence used to inform the preparation of plans that will determine where development should occur.
- Create new nature reserves - the LNRS does not identify areas to be given legal nature protections that create restrictions on how land can be used or managed.
- Prevent nature recovery work from happening in places not prioritised in the LNRS.
Priority species and habitats
Further information is available on the Norfolk and Suffolk Nature Recovery Partnership Publications page.