In 2020, with generous funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Ulster Wildlife, National Trust NI, RSPB NI and Woodland Trust NI came together to start building capacity to deliver Nature Recovery Networks in Northern Ireland. As part of the project, habitat networks maps were produced for all terrestrial and intertidal priority habitats, based on the Natural England (Edwards et al., 2020) methodology. The habitat networks comprise vector datasets that map areas of land into different network categories, based on how favourable the land is for restoration to, or creation of the priority habitat, and how effective actions in each area would be at enhancing connectivity of the priority habitat, based on proximity to existing habitat patches. A description of these network categories is provided in Table 1 in the methodology report, available at https://www.ulsterwildlife.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/EnvSys%20NI%20NRN%20mapping%20report.pdf.
The habitat network maps do not represent a fully comprehensive depiction of land cover, nor do they provide specific land management options and do not therefore replace the need for an on-site ecological surveys/appraisals. The maps are intended to function as a decision-support tool alongside other pieces of information, both from on-site surveys and data from other sources.
