Richard Black BBC News 7 Jun 11;
The government has published proposals aimed at curbing loss of nature across England and strengthening links between people and the wild.
The Natural Environment White Paper aims to put a value on nature, and use economic levers to conserve it.
Businesses building on green space may have to pay "biodiversity offsets".
The government intends to establish an index of "natural capital", to sit beside GDP and the new index of well-being as markers of society's health.
Last week, the National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) concluded that nature was worth billions of pounds to the UK each year, through providing "ecosystem services" such as clean water, pollination and fertile soil.
The white paper calls for the establishment of 12 "improvement areas" in places where ecological health has been degraded.
Some public funds will be available to restore them, to be allocated on a competitive basis.
But the government is expected to ask businesses and community groups to raise money and lead the process.
Establishing these restoration areas was one of the measures advocated in a government-commissioned report, Making Space for Nature, published last year.
Both it, and the NEA, concluded that more aspects of nature are declining across the UK than are improving.
And Making Space for Nature said England's protected wild areas were too fragmented, failing to offer long-term stability and protection to wildlife.
The assessment called for "corridors" to be established to allow wildlife to move from one area to another.
"The big thing for us is we want the white paper to map out a vision of how we can move from the current state of a net loss of nature to a position of net gain," said Helen Meech, The National Trust's assistant director-general for external affairs.
Offsetting the damage
The white paper establishes a number of ways in which nature can be restored to better health.
These include the establishment of a "biodiversity offset" scheme, under which businesses developing schemes that affect nature would have to pay for conservation in a different place.
This is a concept that is already used by some businesses, such as mining giant Rio Tinto, that have declared policies of "no net loss of biodiversity".
The paper also includes tweaks to planning regulations, although more profound reforms are due later in the year.
"The government needs to take a fresh look - and a smarter approach - at the way we use and manage the natural environment," said Paul Wilkinson, head of living landscape at The Wildlife Trusts.
"We currently find ourselves working amidst an array of policies and mechanisms that determine how land is used and managed.
"Few of these were designed with nature in mind, and virtually none allow for its restoration."
Some organisations want incentives in areas such as health and education to be used in ways relating to nature.
The "pupil premium" that schools receive for enrolling poor students could be used to fund visits to forests or rivers, while Department of Health funding for people to use gyms could be diverted into outdoor exercise projects.
Some interested groups are concerned that short-term priorities such as dealing with the recession could reduce spending on nature.
But advisers such as the National Trust say the government must stick with the long-term message of the NEA - that investing in nature protection will pay dividends in future.
"We're in the middle of a time of great economic constraint, and we're urging the government not to constrain their ambition but to take a long-term view," Ms Meech told BBC News.
