The Landscape Institute has signed an open letter calling on the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, to reset the Government’s approach to nature recovery.

More than 100 organisations and individuals have backed the letter, including wildlife trusts, professional bodies, businesses, academics and campaigners. Signatories range from CIEEM and the British Ecological Society to Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Chris Packham and Stephen Fry. Ian Phillips, Chair of the LI’s Policy and Public Affairs Committee, signed on behalf of the Institute.

The letter warns that recent changes to environmental law have left the UK’s natural assets more vulnerable than ever. It argues that laws which once required harm to be avoided now permit unmeasured habitat loss, and that manifesto pledges on climate, nature, green access and sustainable farming have been abandoned.

It sets out four asks for the new Prime Minister:

• Build nature into national infrastructure: Create a Strategic Nature Network recognised as critical national infrastructure, appoint a Resilience and Adaptation Commissioner, and deliver a National Nature Jobs Strategy.
• Protect nature at the point of harm: Halt Environmental Delivery Plans pending full assessment, and reject proposed expansions to Biodiversity Net Gain exemptions.
• Back British food and nature-friendly farming: Give farmers long-term certainty, end badger culling, and ban bee-killing pesticides.
• Put communities, health and nature at the heart of planning: Replace growth-at-all-costs presumptions with plan-led development, make access to nature a public health right, and invest in planning authorities, national parks and environmental regulators.

The letter also highlights the economic case for strong environmental protection. It cites £350m of private investment channelled into natural resilience through BNG since 2024, and warns that weakening safeguards will not build more homes but will enable lower-quality development in the wrong places.