National park admits it could do 'more' for wildlife

Northumberland National Park receives the smallest grant of any of the national parks

The chief executive of a national park has admitted "much more could be done" to increase biodiversity.

The Campaign for National Parks (CNP) charity has released a report suggesting just 6% of national park land in England and Wales was managed effectively for nature.

Tony Gates, who leads Northumberland National Park, said the park was suffering from "a chronic lack of government funding".

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it was "fully committed" to supporting national park land.

The CNP's report said the parks were designed for a different era and had not changed their mission to reflect climate change and species loss.

Northumberland has the lowest visitor numbers of any of the National Park

"I agree that national parks should be beacons for nature and we could be, and should be, doing more," Mr Gates said.

"But we weren't set up as nature parks, we were set up as cultural landscapes and they can be busy crowded spaces, which is not always ideal for wildlife."

He added that people lived and worked there, and "any transition to an environment which supports nature recovery" had to be done sensitively.

There are 256 farms within, or partly within, the Northumberland National Park boundary

The CNP report points out that only a small proportion of national park budgets go on projects to help wildlife, but argues that is partly because their budgets have been cut by 40% in real terms in the last decade.

The government’s grant to Northumberland National Park has been frozen since 2019.

A report from the park authority in 2022 argued that meant its funding would have been cut by 22% because of inflation, on top of losing 40% between 2010 and 2019.

Chief Executive of Northumberland National Park Tony Gates says funding has been "cut to the bone"

"Most of the money we spend on nature recovery, we raise through fundraising, grants and philanthropic donations," Mr Gates explained.

"One success story is the Hadrian's Wall Recovery Programme, but that was funded by the charity the Reece Foundation.

"We don’t have the legal powers to do a lot around nature, and yet we are well placed to do so, with good relationships with landowners and charities, but the government just isn't backing us."

The Hadrian's Wall Recovery Programme at the Greenlee Lough National Nature Reserve aims to help wildlife including red squirrel, otter and curlew

A Defra spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to supporting these iconic landscapes, which is why we are providing an extra £10m funding for this financial year, in addition to the £56.6m they have received each year for the last four years.

“This additional funding is available for parks and landscapes to use on nature projects and on solutions to tackle climate change, or investing in other projects."