The West of England Mayoral Combined Authority is led by the Metro Mayor Dan Norris, and covers the three geographical areas of Bath & North East Somerset, Bristol and South Gloucestershire. The Mayoral Combined Authority works to solve pressing challenges in the West of England.
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00:00We are in Bristol at Gloucestershire Cricket Club and we've got this fantastic conference going on about nature and the environment.
00:08So, the West of England Nature Partnership is a coalition of local authorities, wildlife NGOs, water companies, farming organisations
00:20and basically any organisation in the West of England region that has an interest in or a responsibility for nature recovery.
00:29The UK is one of the most degraded countries in the globe in terms of nature, which is hard for many people to understand when we look across our green and pleasant land.
00:40But nature is absolutely fundamental to our social economic growth. It's a foundation stone to our health and well-being.
00:51It underpins our food systems and food security and of course it provides natural resources that we see in our buildings and infrastructure.
01:01So, it's absolutely fundamentally important not only to the nation but also to this region.
01:08I'm obviously here in the role as Mayor of the Combined Authority, the West of England area, and it's a fantastic role because what I'm able to do is bring all these people together.
01:19So, local nature recovery strategies are required to map where the important areas are for nature's recovery in the region
01:28and also to say what the priorities are for nature in those areas, so what actions you should carry out to benefit nature.
01:37In the West of England, we've taken it a step further as well as mapping those areas and saying what the priority actions are within those areas.
01:45We've developed a toolkit that tells you wherever you are in the West of England what you can do for nature.
01:53And that's to be used by anyone, whether you're a farmer, a business, a community, that's to empower the whole region to take action for nature's recovery.
02:01Well, I think we all know from the changes in the weather, the rainfall, just think how wet it is, how windy it sometimes is,
02:08things are happening that is having an impact on our weather and our planet, which won't always have positive consequences.
02:16I mean, it's sometimes nice to have warmer weather, I agree, but if you think about it, just think of what's happened recently just abroad,
02:24where, you know, huge floods and all sorts of things, we've had some of those experiences too in our country.
02:29We can do many things to restore nature in this region and some examples of those programmes are here today,
02:35whether it's looking at generating the western forests and improving the connectivity of existing woodland,
02:42whether it's looking at water quality and looking at holding water in the landscape to improve the quality of water
02:49and also to reduce the impact on our communities when we have sustained rainfall or shocks of rainfall.
02:56We also are looking at biodiversity net gain.