RSUA has welcomed the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ (DAERA) commitment to explore and review options around the adoption of a biodiversity net gain (BNG) approach within the planning system in Northern Ireland by 2028.
This follows consistent engagement with DAERA and its Minister, Andrew Muir, on the importance of introducing BNG in a way that does not add undue bureaucracy.
Consideration of BNG was one of four actions RSUA indicated an interest in pursuing in collaboration with the Department as part of our response to its public consultation on a Draft Nature Recovery Strategy.
Meeting our commitments
The stated premise of the Nature Recovery Strategy is that it “sets out how we intend to meet international and national ambitions in Northern Ireland”. Chief among these is the “30 by 30” (or 30×30) target, which aims for 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean to be effectively conserved and managed for nature by 2030.
Northern Ireland, as part of the UK, has committed to this target through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This framework was agreed under the Convention on Biological Diversity at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in December 2022.
This commitment was restated in the NI Executive’s Programme for Government in March 2025.
Future actions of interest
In addition to BNG, RSUA has expressed an interest in working with the Department on other areas of policy outlined in the Strategy, guided primarily by RSUA’s own Climate Action Paper 2023.
These include:
Further engagement
RSUA’s full response can be accessed here.
If you have any queries about this consultation response, please contact Curtis Large, RSUA Policy and Public Affairs Officer, at curtis@rsua.org.uk
