Threatened Species Recovery Actions for England
Water vole by Eugene Butterworth
TSRAs, which the Mammal Society worked on (leading on defining the TSRAs for all terrestrial and marine mammals excepting bats) has been published this week in conjunction with a press release celebrating the Species Recovery Programme capital grant scheme. The publication comprises a technical report and spreadsheet (TSRA 2025 baseline) and is platformed on Natural England Access to Evidence as a Joint Publication.
The baseline dataset has involved the evaluation of over 1,900 species, spanning over 40 taxonomic groups from a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats. As a result, a total of over 3,600 actions been produced for 1,384 species. A huge thank-you to you all for engaging in the project and your invaluable contributions. It simply would not have been possible without your help.
Threatened Species Recovery Actions (TSRA) is a partnership species action-planning project (2023-25) focusing on England’s threatened species and is key to the delivery of the 2042 Extinction Risk target in The Environmental Targets (Biodiversity) (England) Regulations 2023.
The project identifies which species are most in need of recovery in England today and the specific actions required to progress their recovery. In so doing, it aims to inform species conservation priorities nationally and guide the development of future recovery projects. Led by Natural England, TSRA is the result of a large and diverse partnership of governmental and non-governmental organisations, involving over 80 specialists from across the environmental sector.
The project evaluated over 1,900 species, spanning terrestrial, freshwater and marine groups. These were drawn from GB Red Lists, specifically those species listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Near Threatened, Regionally Extinct, or Extinct in the Wild, and from the Section 41 list of species of principal importance in England (NERC Act, 2006). Only species considered high priorities for species-focussed measures in England were action planned, determined by expert evaluation against two criteria. This approach aimed to identify the most important next steps to progress species along their recovery curves. Actions identified under the project were practical rather than policy-focussed and aimed to be SMART and progressive. In total, over 3,600 actions were authored for 1,384 qualifying taxa.
The TSRA baseline comprises a spreadsheet containing the actions and associated data, and an accompanying technical report and user guide which documents the approach, methods and results.