Inspiration: Examples of using Condatis to plan restoration

Condatis was used in a collaborative project with Natural England to identify connectivity bottlenecks across England.

The aim was to help with various initiatives that are able to steer funding and effort on habitat rehabilitation and restoration. Notably, these include Local Nature Recovery Strategies that cover the whole country, and Nature Recovery Projects at the landscape scale. For full details of the project see our Natural England Commissioned report and the bottlenecks data published in 2024.

To produce bottleneck maps, the movement of generic species with dispersal distances of 1 km and 3.4 km was modelled in four different directions across the landscape, focusing initially on three broad seminatural habitats: grassland, heathland, and wetlands. The national maps produced show the most severe bottlenecks in the three habitats, which occurred especially towards the middle of England. Recommended ‘search areas’ were drawn around the bottlenecks to guide practitioners as to where restoration could be most impactful, if it were feasible. It is recommended that these maps are used in conjunction with other available information (e.g. land use maps or infrastructure), because, as mentioned above, a ‘bottleneck’ only indicates that there is a problematic gap in habitat, irrespective of the reason for the gap. 

The project identified advantages and disadvantages to running Condatis analyses at the national and local scales. The national scale analyses provide context which can be used to inform every local area as well as showing the alternative routes through the habitat network that species can use. However, the national scale analysis is restricted to modelling the movement of medium- or long-distance dispersers. Example analyses at a finer spatial resolution – at Nature Recovery Project scale – considered species with shorter dispersal distances. 

Multi-criteria planning for the Northern Forest  

The Northern Forest project is a major environmental initiative in the UK, aiming to create much better connected woodland stretching from Liverpool to Hull across northern England. Spanning urban areas, farmland, and existing woodlands, the project plans to plant 50 million trees over 25 years to boost biodiversity, improve air quality, and provide recreational spaces. Using Condatis, the project has identified critical bottlenecks in woodland habitat connectivity, particularly in areas where species movement is restricted by urban development or fragmented landscapes.

The bottleneck map was used to produce a tree-planting scenario map for the Northern Forest, which incorporated additional factors such as flooding risk and mental health benefits. 

Condatis has helped to shape the B-Lines programme, Buglife’s landscape-scale solution to reversing pollinator declines across the UK. B-Lines are 3km corridors connecting our best remaining wildflower-rich habitats- a prioritised national network for habitat creation and restoration to restore connectivity. B-Lines is a shared endeavour where all landowners and managers can prioritise their wildflower creation and restoration work to contribute to a nature network to reverse pollinator declines.