On 22 January 2026, the Government quietly published a statutory report on how England has implemented the Habitats Regulations over the period 2019–2024. It should have led the news, but while it landed quietly, adrift and lost in a frenetic news week, the findings have created a great deal of noise in the conservation community.
The headline statistic is stark: only 3% of assessed habitat types are in “Favourable Conservation Status” - meaning they are considered to be thriving across their natural range and likely to keep thriving into the future. Put another way: for the habitats that sit within the UK’s strongest legal framework for nature protection, “doing well” is now the exception.
The report assesses 71 habitat types (including coastal and marine habitats out to 12 nautical miles), alongside non-bird species and a separate assessment of bird trends. It finds 48% of habitats are in an unfavourable and deteriorating condition, while 30% of non-bird species are classed as favourable. For birds, the report notes that at least half are not in favourable condition, based on conservation status listings.
For ORCA, one line in the report hits especially hard: climate change is identified as the most frequently cited pressure affecting 100% of marine and coastal habitats. If marine habitats are under universal climate pressure, the knock-on impacts for the wider food web and for whales, dolphins and porpoises that depend on healthy, functioning seas, should be obvious.
Environmental NGOs have reacted with anger and urgency. Wildlife and Countryside Link called the figures a “dawn chorus wake up call” for politicians, pointing to pollution from intensive agriculture and the failure to deliver meaningful action to clean up farming impacts on water. The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management echoed the alarm, highlighting the same grim top-line numbers and warning that this report must sharpen political focus rather than become another ignored audit of decline. Meanwhile, Freshwater Habitats Trust described the UK’s Habitats Regulations reporting as evidence of a systemic failure to protect the species and habitats these laws were designed to safeguard and argued for urgent reform, investment, and more ambitious outcomes-led water policy.
Specialist media has also picked up the significance. ENDS Report summarised the findings bluntly: only 3% of habitat types covered are in favourable condition, despite the legal framework intended to protect them.
The report does point to actions taken - including new byelaws intended to support conservation objectives in inshore marine protected areas, and the designation of England’s first inshore Highly Protected Marine Area at Allonby Bay. But the overall picture is clear: these measures are not yet adding up to recovery at the scale required.
This is exactly why ORCA keeps pushing for joined-up, properly enforced protection at sea - not paper parks, not piecemeal rules, and not nature policy that quietly tolerates collapse. The science is telling us where the pressures are. The law is meant to be the mechanism for change. The missing ingredient is political will, let alone urgency - and the resources to match it.
If 3% is where we are for the habitats we most claim to protect, then we shall all need to make a lot more noise.
ORCA’s work is funded by donations from people who care about whales and dolphins. Your support helps us monitor, turn evidence into protection, and create safer oceans for these gentle giants.