Wider benefits

A path snaking to the left, with soft green grass sloping down the hill, with a view of the sea and distant cliff faces

Bolt Tail to Hope Cove, Simon Hodgkiss

We all rely on nature

A healthy natural environment supports a high quality of life for everyone across Devon and helps to achieve priorities such as clean water, reduced flooding and health and wellbeing.

Natural capital refers to assets (such as water, minerals, soils, woodlands and wildlife) and the essential benefits these assets provide (such as food, timber, pollination and climate control). These benefits are often referred to as ecosystem services. Natural capital assets underpin human life. In 2020, Devon, Somerset and Plymouth Local Nature Partnerships worked with the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership to jointly publish Investing in Natural Capital for the Heart of the South West, explaining what natural capital is, why it’s critical to the social and economic wellbeing of the region and including case studies.

In 2012, the Devon Local Nature Partnership was set up and commissioned a report on Devon’s Green Economy. While some of the facts in this report are now out of date, it still provides a useful overview.

This first LNRS focuses on five key areas where the restoration of wildlife habitats has wider benefits to society:

A yellow, orange and green tractor sprays a green field full of crops with fields, trees, and hedgerows in the background.

Air quality
Sunlight filtering through tall broadleaved trees.

Carbon sequestration

Connecting people and nature

Water quality and flood risk

Other useful links:

Did you know?

Insect pollination is worth £690 million to UK agriculture.

The cost to the UK to replace bees and pollinate by hand would exceed £1.5 billion a year.

Sustainable pollination services for UK crops, University of Reading, 2014

Draft