Nature Governance in the collapse-aware era: How law, policy and finance must come together to support ecological resilience.

by Imogen O’Rorke

Europe is still counting the cost of its “summer of ashes”. From June to August this year, extreme-heat-related wildfires caused over €3 billion in restoration costs across the EU; with some estimates¹ putting the total economic cost closer to €19 billion if destroyed homes, businesses and crops, disruption to tourism and industry, health effects, added strain on public finances and potentially higher insurance premiums are included.

Related to these extreme weather events, the concept of ‘collapse-awareness’ is beginning to creep into public thinking. The uncomfortable term (that will be familiar to many in sustainability circles) encapsulates the recognition that climate stability and healthy nature underpin food and water security, infrastructure, economic stability and national security – without the double helix, civilisation as we know it starts to collapse.

Launched at the end June, the UK Government’s Taskforce for Climate Security made up of leading academics (from climate, nature and health) together with experts in security and military preparedness, aims to tackle the threats presented by climate/nature breakdown. While the timing, in the midst of a second heatwave with raging wildfires across the UK, felt a bit ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ – that moment in the 2004 disaster movie when world leaders attempt to stop the climate catastrophe only after the superstorm has started destroying cities – it is better late than never.

Nature is undoubtedly our strongest partner in adapting to a warming planet and the cornerstone of resilience. And yet funding for nature-based solutions still falls far short (by some USD 350 billion annually — or a gap of more than 2.5 times) to stay within acceptable planetary boundaries². We know the consequences of not acting decisively and quickly are far more costly: the European Central Bank (EcB) recently estimated losses to infrastructure and assets arising from climate risks at EUR 822 billion during 1980 – 2024 in the EU alone – a figure which can only increase.

Nature governance and accountability in the private sector, meanwhile, remains negligible – as IPBES revealed earlier this year, with less than 1% even reporting on nature impacts. The EcB estimates 75 percent of banks’ corporate loans (some EUR 4.5 trillion in the Eurozone alone) are to companies that are highly dependent on nature, which leaves all parties highly exposed.

For lawyers, for financiers, for policymakers this raises serious questions. If climate and nature risks are known (but not adequately accounted for in financial modelling), and we head towards a ‘hothouse world’ of 2 degrees plus – with logical consequences for human health, rights and economic harm – then who is responsible? In the midst of the wildfire crisis in July, The Guardian, Le Monde and El Pais published editorials urging European leaders to reprioritise climate action – the former suggesting that to do otherwise was a dereliction of duty.

The landmark ICJ Advisory Opinion of 2025 linked climate breakdown to legal obligations – the multiple implications across public law, planning, finance, corporate governance and disclosure will continue to ripple out. Furthermore, the sphere of climate and nature-related litigation is also expanding fast globally – The Oxford Climate Policy Monitor 2025 reported tripling of cases in the previous five years. And last month the TNFD published new ‘Guidance on environmental crime’ and how it intersects with the LEAP approach for identification and assessment of nature-related issues. When the full toll of Europe’s “summer of ashes” has been taken, will we see more cases being brought against governments for failing to meet climate obligations?

How the Rights of Nature intersects with financial governance

It was against this backdrop (but before the wildfires) that we convened the ‘Rights of Nature: Nature Finance, Risk & Resilience’ working group between February and June this year, to look at how the growing field of ‘Earth Law’ or eco jurisprudence might offer a theory of change for shifting financial markets. The Eco Jurisprudence Monitor shows how Rights of Nature (RoN) approaches are proliferating – from substantive rights in some countries, to legal personhood for at-risk ecosystems, new procedural rights pathways and innovations in private company law.

The group brought together insiders from the nature markets (including a member of a leading biodiversity credit think tank), insurance, leading voices in BNG land law and policy, impact investors, financial and environmental policymakers (a convener of the APPG on Sustainable Finance, a former Defra expert), as well as experts in conservation and nature risk (CEO of an environmental NGO) to look at blockers, opportunities and possible pathways forward.

Where the markets have been slow to react to the biodiversity crisis, people have been mobilising. The RoN movement – which is grounded in Indigenous customary law and grassroots community action – has gained substantial momentum around the world in the past 15 years (in the UK, most notably through river charters and nature guardianship), as people turn to legal remedies to halt the continuing degradation of wild places and depletion of our natural resources.

Rights of Nature as a Theory of Change

As we considered what a ‘Theory of Change’ towards a nature-aligned financial system would look like, we came up against the core challenges. Fundamentally, financial institutions are wired to value commodities (dead, extracted resources) but are still clutching at straws when it comes to putting a value on living healthy ecosystems. Three years since the first biodiversity credit was traded, nature markets are still nascent, with funds closing due to undercapitalisation. The gap between nature-positive intention and investment is huge: with finance flowing towards naturenegative investments still dwarfing naturepositive flows.

We considered positive examples where attempts to put a value on living nature have resulted in direct action to mitigate degradation. For example, the insurance group Howden worked with Marriot International to restore coral reefs in The Maldives after quantifying the “avoided losses” of losing the “ecosystem services”, particularly the impact on tourism. While the insurance industry has been an early backer of biodiversity credits, it will no doubt be cautious of nature-related litigation as source of potential legal, financial and operational risk.

Another paradigmatic problem is that nature is still sidelined as an ‘ESG’ issue, or financial externality, instead of being viewed as the foundation of a healthy economy/society. We heard from an impact investor in our group that since the Trump-era “ESG backlash”, investors have begun reframing NbS as investments in “essential infrastructure”, “civilisation technologies” and now “national security”.

We also heard from a nature tech provider that companies fear imperfect action – or are waiting for “more assured” data before investing – which results in paralysis.

Could RoN strengthen financial frameworks?

To inform the discussions, members were invited to take part in a mapping exercise to identify where the Rights of Nature might intersect with (and strengthen) financial frameworks and taxonomies. Just as RoN principles are being used by environmental law groups – including Environmental Law Foundation, Lawyers for Nature, Earth Law Center, UKELA – to strengthen existing laws and advance corporate governance through Nature-as-Stakeholder approaches, we considered how RoN mechanisms could be used almost as a “governance upgrade” for financial decision-making.

Across the Global Biodiversity Framework and the major disclosure ESG frameworks (TNFD/ISSB, GRI, CSRD/ESRS) nature is embedded through impact, risk and dependency assessments, but these reporting systems are rooted in what is financially material and remain harm-thresholdbased. RoN positions natural ecosystems and species as rightsbearing entities (not merely externalities) and introduces guardianship and legal representation models for addressing infractions. For example, the groundbreaking Los Cedros ruling in Ecuador (2021) shifted the burden of proof for ecological harm to the state and developers.

The mapping highlighted gaps in existing taxonomies and showed how RoN principles and approaches (in the absence of a broadly accepted RoN legal framework) could provide a corrective: introducing high integrity sciencebased ecological thresholds and strengthening corporate governance and directors’ duties. It outlined the impacts/implications and opportunities of RoN for different financial stakeholders – for example, tying impacts and outcomes to environmental justice through Indigenous and Local Community-led (IPLC) stewardship.

The group also considered how RoN had potential to bring Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) along by shifting it from a transactional, compliance exercise toward a governance model centred on longterm, living stewardship and representation for ecosystems and species within landownership structures.

One of the positive outcomes of discussions was that two members went on to advise the TNFD’s Guidance on environmental crime’ on the section ‘Emerging legal concepts’ covering the Rights of Nature, Ecocide and senior management accountability, in the context of financial risk and environmental harm.

What did we learn?

There was broad agreement that RoN could be a powerful enabler: for moving beyond disclosures and divestment towards active stewardship; away from thresholds and damaging permits to long-term ecosystem integrity; and for bringing “the voice of nature” into decision-making. But “getting the language right”, as well as the application of RoN mechanisms (case by case), will be absolutely critical. Corporate leaders are comfortable with good governance concepts but startled by the language of rights, which raises potential for operational conflict and risk. As it grows, the RoN movement is likely to come up against a rising swell of opposition, not only from private vested interests, but general scepticism that this is a “fringe issue”.

But if we recentre the economy within nature, then RoN is far from fringe. And Earth Law is not just for the non-human – it is interwoven with basic human rights such as the right to a healthy environment, access to wild nature, to potable water, and the rights of future generations including other species.

The discussions culminated in an in-person event ‘From Theory to Practice: Advancing the Rights of Nature in Law, Policy and Finance’ that considered our findings alongside those of the Law and Policy group. As the lightening talks from participants ran over into networking time, it was clear we had just scratched the surface. Further analysis and collaboration are needed – either through more focused groups, or a dedicated committee to bring law, policy and finance together for stronger nature governance.

We are at a turning point on nature. Central banks and supervisors are beginning to embed nature into sovereign risk assessments – a powerful lever for change. Naturerelated supplychain shocks are already moving markets – Nestlé’s share price has fallen multiple times this year due to coffee and cocoa supplychain pressures.

Pathways ahead for business leaders

If they aren’t already doing so, regulators and policymakers must start treating nature-related risks both as physical and systemic risk (prudential, credit risk, market risk, underwriting risk, operational risk and interrelated transition risks). Upgrading financial frameworks in line with the 2026-2028 Swiss FINMA Nature Risk Reporting Requirements (that mandates Swiss banks and insurers to move beyond disclosure to actively manage nature-related financial risks and dependencies including biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and climate transition exposures) would be a good start.

Investors should begin embedding nature-risk in funding decisions and stress-testing portfolios: water scarcity and pollution, the collapse of food chains due to drought and soil erosion, and general supply chain fragility represent direct financial exposure. “Your portfolios will be worth precisely zero unless we invest in nature recovery,” is how one investor in our group put it.

Organisations of all sizes need to do the work to get nature onto the balance sheet and get a handle on nature risk. That means nature materiality impact assessment and scenario modelling, analysing supply chain portfolio exposure and reducing impacts and dependencies, adopting “avoided-losses” metrics where relevant. The frameworks and resources for doing this exist: TNFD’s LEAP approach helps organisations identify and assess nature-related issues; the Network for Greening the Financial System maps out how to perform Nature scenario analysis; the IBA this year published a Nature-intelligent toolkit for legal services providers.

Nature-dependent organisations (which, arguably, is most) could invest in nature-based resilience through nature markets, especially where material to their business model (for example, beverages companies investing in water resources management); and start the transition to regenerative business models.

Purpose-led businesses could introduce nature governance via risk committees and Nature-as-Stakeholder models – there are many ways to do this. Each organisation must consider what structures most effectively and authentically represent Nature’s interests. If the avoidance of ecological harm were tied to fiduciary duties, the needle would shift in the right direction. Furthermore, nature-positive principles and nature guardianship could be integrated company culture through training and volunteering schemes. These innovations have substantial transformative potential and don’t require regulatory change.

The business community must get behind a shared narrative and commit to the shared idea that there is “no economy without nature”. That requires multi-stakeholder engagement, advocacy and wider public debate. Recent research from the LSE ‘Facing the Global Biodiversity Crises and Sixth Mass Extinction’, conducted across five countries including the UK, shows people have a strong emotional response to the nature crisis – so it should be an easier sell than net zero.

Ultimately, the RoN Finance, Resilience and Risk group unlocked more questions than we were able to answer – a sign of progress perhaps. What regulatory triggers could be used to ensure nature risk management? How do we define “minimum ecological operating conditions” for the UK economy? Can Rights of Nature approaches and principles be integrated into nature markets metrics and BNG planning protocol to raise standards? And finally, how do we build political will for nature governance before advancing ecosystem breakdown and eventual systemic collapse forces it?

Some of these questions are being addressed in the Nature, Legal and Finance Forum, convened by the Legal Charter 1.5 – a cross-disciplinary collaboration bringing together legal professionals, investors, insurers, policymakers, academics and governance experts to explore the legal, fiduciary, regulatory and practical implications of nature-related impacts, risks and opportunities.

5 GOALS: to move Rights of Nature from a legal concept to a practical framework for financial decision-making, corporate governance, market design and public policy.

Rights of Nature (RoN) is increasingly being explored as a practical response to accelerating biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and the growing recognition that existing governance frameworks are failing to halt nature decline. Once viewed primarily as a legal concept, RoN is now gaining attention from policymakers, regulators, investors, businesses and civil society as a catalyst for systemic change. Translating these principles into real-world governance, financial and policy frameworks remains an emerging challenge. The following goals propose a practical agenda for a cross-sector initiative to explore how RoN principles can inform decision-making, accountability and long-term stewardship

Beyond the Hive: rethinking how we support pollinators

By Aimee Burns, Operational Sustainability Manager, Penningtons Manches Cooper.

Across the legal sector, there has been a growing interest in supporting biodiversity and conservation work, particularly pollinators. For many organisations, installing beehives has become a visible and well-intentioned way to demonstrate environmental commitment. At Penningtons Manches Cooper, we started in a similar place. Like many, we associated honeybees with “doing something positive for nature.” But through our partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, we’ve come to understand that the picture is more complex and that well-meaning interventions can sometimes have unintended consequences. This article shares a little of that learning journey, with the aim of helping others across the Legal Sustainability Alliance community take the most effective, evidence-based action for pollinators.

Photo caption: M.Drew

The starting point: good intentions, incomplete picture

Honeybees are often seen as the poster species for pollinator conservation. They’re familiar, recognisable, and their products, particularly honey, create a tangible connection between people and nature. This visibility has contributed to a growing trend in urban environments: installing managed honeybee hives on office rooftops and within corporate estates. However, what we’ve learned, supported by the Trust’s scientific expertise, is that honeybees are not endangered in the UK in the same way that many wild pollinators are. In fact, honeybees are a managed species, with populations actively maintained by beekeepers. The real area of concern lies with wild pollinators, including bumblebees and solitary bees, many of which are in decline due to habitat loss, pesticide use and climate pressures.

Photo credit: K.Sargeant

What happens when hive densities increase?

One of the most important insights from our work with the Trust relates to competition for food. In urban environments, floral resources such as pollen and nectar are limited. Introducing additional honeybee colonies increases the demand on those resources. Where hive densities are high, this can lead to competition with wild pollinators, including bumblebees. To put this into perspective, a single honeybee hive can require a significant area of forage, the Trust has indicated this can be equivalent to several hectares of flower-rich habitat. In dense cities like London, this level of resource simply isn’t available. The result is that wild species, which are not managed or supplemented, may struggle to access the food they need to survive. Furthermore, honeybee hives can pose additional pressures, as they risk transmitting diseases to wild pollinators. This has been a key moment of reflection for us: recognising that an action widely perceived as “helping nature” may, in some contexts, be contributing to the pressures faced by the very species most in need of support.

The issue of “beewashing”

As awareness grows, so too does the conversation around “beewashing”, in which the use of managed bees, such as honeybees, is portrayed as sustainable action to help biodiversity. There’s no doubt that hive installations can play a role in engagement, education and storytelling. But on their own, they are not a comprehensive or necessarily effective biodiversity strategy. What our partnership with the Trust has highlighted is the importance of shifting the narrative away from single-species interventions and towards ecosystem-based approaches that support a diversity of pollinators.

A strategic decision to support wild pollinators

Through our work with the Trust, we made the decision to focus on habitat creation and improvement. This includes:

• increasing the availability of flower-rich planting throughout the seasons
• prioritising native flowers and drought-resistant species that provide high-quality forage
• creating nesting opportunities for bumblebees and solitary bees
• reducing mowing regimes to allow spaces to flower
• avoiding pesticide use where possible

These actions support a broad range of pollinators, not just honeybees, and help build more resilient urban ecosystems. Importantly, these approaches can be adapted to different scales and settings. Conservation action can begin with simple measures that encourage colleagues to support nature at home, such as creating pollinator-friendly gardens or balcony planting, and extend to wider community spaces, local parklands and larger landscape-scale projects. For organisations that do not directly manage their buildings or grounds, there is also an opportunity to work with landlords and property managers to influence planting schemes, habitat enhancement and land management practices, helping to drive positive outcomes across a wider property portfolio.

Photo credit: J. Clark

Why this matters for the legal sector

Law firms are uniquely positioned to influence not just their own estates, but also clients, landlords and supply chains. There is a real opportunity for the sector to lead by example, ensuring that biodiversity initiatives are:

• evidence-based
• transparent in their impact
• aligned with recognised ecological guidance

Our experience has shown that even small changes in understanding can lead to more effective decision-making and ultimately, better outcomes for nature.

A shared learning journey

Our five-year partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust specifically supports the Trust’s Buzzing in the East End – Southeast London (B.E.E), which is centred on driving practical, science-led action within South East London and a subsequent later phase in East London. This collaboration has been invaluable in building our understanding of the complexities around pollinator conservation, helping us raise awareness internally and ensuring our approach is better informed by the latest science. One of the most important lessons has been the willingness to question assumptions, particularly where actions are widely accepted as “the right thing to do.” For organisations across the LSA network, this may mean taking a fresh look at existing biodiversity initiatives, asking:

• what impact are we really having?
• are we supporting the species most in need?
• how can we maximise positive outcomes?

These are not always simple questions, but they are essential ones.

Looking ahead

Supporting pollinators remains a critical part of addressing the wider nature and climate crisis. But as our understanding evolves, so too should our approach. By focusing on habitat, biodiversity, and ecosystem health, rather than single interventions, we can ensure that our efforts are both meaningful and effective. We hope that sharing our experience encourages others to explore this topic further and to engage with the growing body of guidance around best practice. The opportunity for the legal sector is clear: to move beyond well-meaning symbolism, and towards impactful, evidence-led action that truly supports nature. Lorna Giffin-Hannan, Business Partnerships Manager at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, said:

Working with Penningtons Manches Cooper has not only been a brilliant experience for us at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, but their generosity has also brought direct positive impact to the bumblebees we’re here to fight for. It’s wonderful when a partnership can bring such amazing results, and it just goes to show how a little of the right knowledge can go a long way.   We know businesses have the best intentions when they look to introduce hives on their premises, and can often be mortified when they discover it could have the opposite effect. We would urge all firms not to fall into this ‘honey-trap’ and instead have a conversation with us to see how, by working together, we can make a real difference for the bumblebees that enrich our cities, towns, and countryside.

If you’re exploring how best to support pollinators within your organisation, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust offers a range of resources and guidance to help inform next steps.

From Theory to Practice: Advancing Rights of Nature in Law, Policy and Governance

By Rowan Watson

Achill Legal | June 2026

In early June practitioners, policymakers, financiers, and advocates gathered at the offices of Simmons & Simmons in London for an evening that marked a shift in the Rights of Nature conversation in the UK – from aspiration to action. This event brought together the two workstreams, Rights of Nature in law and policy, and Nature Finance and Risk, which were set up following the successful Rights of Nature Symposium convened by Achill Legal for London Climate Action Week in 2025. The workstreams sought to build on that Symposium and the report by developing a theory of change.

Why Rights of Nature – and why now?

Rights of Nature (RoN) is both a philosophical proposition and a practical legal response to ecological breakdown. It challenges our legal systems’ most embedded assumption: that nature is property, an asset to be owned, exploited, and managed sustainably. RoN instead asks whether rivers, forests, and ecosystems might hold legal standing in their own right, with interests that can be represented, protected, and enforced.

This is not a fringe idea. Since Ecuador became the first country to enshrine Rights of Nature in its constitution in 2008, recognising nature’s right to exist and flourish, the concept has taken root across legal systems globally. The UK context, though, is distinct. Jemima Coleman, who chaired the Law and Policy Working Group, grounded the discussion firmly in the UK context, which is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with around one in six species at risk of extinction.

Momentum is building at both local government and national levels from local councils taking their own initiative on nature recovery, to the river guardian movement, to experiments in deliberative democracy and interspecies representation.The River Charter movement led by Emma Montlake and the Environment Law Foundation encourages local councils to use the ‘Love our Ouse’ model and adopt a Charter for their local river and bring nature into the council chamber and decision making

At a national level the Nature’s Rights Bill had its first reading in Parliament, a historic milestone, and a sign that Rights of Nature is “no longer a theory, it’s a reality.” The topic has also debated in the EU Parliament and there is growing interest in an EU Fundamental Charter on Rights of Nature. The Philippines, meanwhile, has enacted groundbreaking nature governance legislation embedding ecological integrity into its national accounting systems.

Yet despite these advances, the urgency of the moment cannot be overstated. UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature report (January 2026) revealed that in 2023, finance directly harmful to nature reached US$7.3 trillion, compared to just US$220 billion invested in nature-based solutions, a ratio of more than 30:1. Seven of the nine critical Earth system boundaries have now been breached. The degradation of natural ecosystems is no longer solely an environmental matter; it carries profound consequences for business continuity, financial stability, and the conditions for human life itself.

An evolving approach and Theories of Change

The Law and Policy session opened with a compelling introduction to the Rights of Nature movement: its philosophical origins, its implementation challenges, and the remarkable diversity of legal approaches emerging around the world. A recurring theme was the unique responsibility lawyers carry in this moment. Human-centric laws are reaching the limits of what they can achieve. The shift toward nature having its own rights is accelerating, and there is a role for everyone in driving it.

Paul Powesland, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers and a river guardian of the river Roding, put the UK approach into context -while we can draw on the international experiences such as those pioneered in Ecuador, we cannot have the same approach. Ecuador still has large tracts of untouched wilderness, so it’s appropriate to focus on rights and protections: the UK must do something harder. and work to restore what has been lost while recognising the scale of the challenge: this is not simply about protecting what remains but actively restoring what has already been severely diminished.

The session also featured a screening of the Nature’s Rights Bill video, a striking reminder that what was once considered a radical legal concept is now entering mainstream parliamentary debate. Mumta Ito who has led the work on the bill shared her systems-level analysis arguing that current systems are stuck in crisis management which treat symptoms rather than causes and her aim is to restructure decision making and design regenerative outcomes by default.

Nature Finance and Risk

The Nature, Finance and Risk group, convened and chaired by Imogen O’Rorke, considered the harder, more contested terrain of what it means to give nature financial value and why, despite the philosophical discomfort it may cause, that work is essential. 

Heather Buchanan opened by drawing attention to the age of our accounting frameworks: the first book on modern accounting is some 500 years old, and it was not designed with nature in mind. Bringing nature onto the balance sheet is therefore not a technical tweak but a fundamental reimagining of how wealth is measured. She pointed to the striking implication: if nature-rich countries were properly valued, the global map of wealth would look very different and so would government priorities.

The central tension of this session was captured in a phrase that resonated across the room: “You can’t put a price on living systems, but we must try.” If nature’s value, including the enormous losses avoided when ecosystems function, is not quantified, it will be ignored by financial institutions. The group has therefore worked on making nature measurable: exploring how RoN can intersect with existing financial frameworks, support science-based ecosystem integrity thresholds, and inform prudential regulation.

Paula Pagniez (Executive Director, Climate Risk & Resilience, Howden Re) cut to the heart of the finance challenge: how do you put a number on nature in a way that actually moves capital? Intrinsic value arguments matter, but they rarely land in a boardroom. What does land is economic reality; the cost of losing a coral reef to the tourism industry that depends on it, the reduction in insurance claims where healthy ecosystems act as natural buffers, the effect of green space on property values.

Susan Twining (Country and Land Business Association) spoke from the perspective of rural land management and the intersection of Rights of Nature with Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). She was clear that clean water is non-negotiable, and that nature management does not come for free. Farmers, she noted, are willing, but nervous. Communication is key. BNG offers a practical route to rewiring financial systems to reflect the value of nature, but it requires genuine collaboration, careful balance of trade-offs, and a recognition that land managers need to want to deliver it.

The session concluded with a frank acknowledgement that we are only scratching the surface of how to rewire financial systems to integrate Rights of Nature. The UK is depleted, but not beyond recovery. What is needed is the right language in the right places: language that makes the financial case for nature impossible to ignore. Stranded asset risk. No nature, no economy. No jobs on a dead planet.

Who Speaks for the Sea?

By Tom Appleby and Lucy Lennard

The sea beneath our feet

Eight thousand years ago, the Dogger Bank was not a sandbank at all. It was land: a wide, wooded plain stretching between what is now the UK and the continental coast of Europe, crossed by rivers, inhabited by animals and, eventually, people. As sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age, it was slowly inundated. The North Sea swallowed it.

That geological history matters. The organic richness of what was once terrestrial soil, preserved under relatively shallow water, makes the Dogger Bank unusually fertile. It supports a range of marine life that is, in the context of the North Sea, extraordinary: cold- water corals, sea pens, anemones, sharks, rays, long-lived shellfish, and the spawning and nursery grounds for cod, haddock and sole. It is even home to migrating salmon smolts, who head south from Scotland along the former coastline, before heading north again to their feeding grounds in the Arctic. It is not just ecologically significant. It is one of the most historically layered stretches of seafloor in European waters.

Until recently it was also heavily trawled, altering the whole structure of the seabed.

The largest ecosystem on Earth

The ocean covers more than two thirds of the planet’s surface. It generates roughly half the oxygen in the atmosphere, absorbs around a quarter of all CO2 emissions, and regulates temperature and weather systems across the entire globe. It is, by any measure, the largest and most consequential ecosystem on Earth.

It is also, legally speaking, one of the least well protected.

The international framework governing the high seas, UNCLOS, was negotiated in 1982. It is a remarkable achievement of international law, but it predates the scientific consensus on the ocean’s role as a carbon sink and a planetary life support system. It was built on an assumption, widespread at the time, that the ocean’s capacity to absorb damage was essentially unlimited. Decades of evidence since then have shown otherwise. The legal architecture has not kept pace.

Even where UNCLOS sets out sensible criteria for environmental protection and sustainable fishing, the legal mechanisms generally require a coastal state to launch proceedings. Where everyone is breaking the rules, which coastal state is going to complain?

A living experiment

In 2019, Blue Marine Foundation started a legal case against the UK Government, challenging the continued permission of bottom trawling inside the UK’s section of the Dogger Bank.

Upon the UK’s departure from the European Union, wording in the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy which had granted the bloc’s fishing vessels a perceived exemption from environmental law fell away. UK fisheries authorities suddenly found themselves liable to conduct the kind of management practices in offshore marine protected areas which applied to all other industries. The UK could only issue fishing licences if they could demonstrate no harm was caused to the sites.

The UK closed its section of the Dogger Bank to bottom-towed fishing gear in 2022, and undertook to take management measures for all of its other offshore sites for fishing within three years, a promise it has failed to keep: the tranche three proposals, particularly in the South West of England, remain to be managed.

What has happened since is, in scientific terms, a natural experiment unlike any other in the North Sea. Fishing pressure has fallen by 98% and life is returning. Just this year, orcas have been seen back on the Dogger, which is a good sign of a recovering ecosystem, and Blue Marine and others are obtaining a licence to restore the horse mussel beds which used to be present throughout the site. On the Dutch side, trawling continued, and the difference has become visible.

That contrast, and the legal precedent established by the UK case, formed part of the basis for the next step.

Protected means protected

On 11 May this year, the District Court of The Hague ruled that Dutch bottom trawlers can no longer operate in the Dutch section of the Dogger Bank without a permit and a full environmental impact assessment. Blue Marine was one of the four organisations that brought the case, alongside Doggerland Foundation, ARK Rewilding Nederland and ClientEarth.

It was the first ruling in Europe confirming that governments have a legal responsibility to regulate bottom trawling in offshore marine protected areas. The court found that blanket exemptions for fishing inside Natura 2000 protected areas are contrary to nature protection legislation. The burden of proof has shifted: vessels wishing to fish in the protected zone must now demonstrate that their activities cause no harm. For vessels unable to do that, access will be withdrawn.

The problem remained that the EU parts of the Dogger Bank in France and Germany were unprotected. Blue Marine and its collaborators used a different part of the EU Common Fisheries Policy, which placed the burden of proof onto member states to comply with environmental law. Until then, compliance had taken the form of an endless talking shop between member states and the EU, which had few legal teeth to enforce actual management.

The Dutch ruling has significance well beyond the Dutch courts as it is a ruling on European law, which should be applied by other member states to their vessels. It is only a first instance decision, but since it is the first ruling anywhere in the EU on this novel process, and the wording in the legislation is very clear, other member states would be expected to follow similar processes. There will be another case in Germany later this year, which the Dutch case expedited. This is a landmark decision with much broader ramifications.

“This case is important in the UK too, which is why we, a UK charity, were one of the litigants,” Tom Appleby said after the ruling. “We have all signed up to the same international obligations, and protecting the North Sea benefits the environment of the entire region. Seabirds, salmon, cetaceans and seals do not recognise national boundaries.”

What this means for lawyers

The Dogger Bank story is, at its core, a story about what lawyers can do. A campaign that began with a legal challenge to the UK Government produced management measures against one of the most harmful activities we carry out at sea: bottom trawling. That legal action formed part of the factual basis for a ruling that will carry implications across Europe. Similar cases are already active in six other jurisdictions.

Tom Appleby’s point to legal audiences is that the work is not confined to environmental specialists. Blue Marine relies on pro bono legal support across a wide range of disciplines: competition law, to challenge industry exemptions and market distortions; property law, on coastal access and foreshore rights; criminal law, in cases involving illegal fishing and wildlife crime; tort law, on nuisances; and international and European law, to navigate the treaty frameworks governing high seas protection. No specialism is too remote.

“Pretty much every single legal discipline can help,” he told an LSA audience earlier this year. “The system is such a mess, there’s room for us all.”

Lawyers also advise the clients whose decisions shape what happens to the ocean: energy companies, financial institutions, shipping firms, food retailers and developers. The question of marine impact, of emerging regulatory risk around MPAs, of supply chain exposure to illegal or unsustainable catch, is relevant across those transactions. Raising it does not require specialist knowledge. It requires awareness of the direction of travel.

Two things to avoid

The first is accepting the weakening of existing protections. There is real political pressure, in the UK and internationally, to soften environmental obligations in the name of growth and energy security. For the ocean, that pressure manifests in proposed extensions of fishing exemptions, diluted MPA designations, and delayed implementation of the High Seas Treaty. Each concession, in an ecosystem already under stress, compounds.

The second is treating the interests of fishing communities as something to be argued past rather than addressed. The transition to sustainable fishing practice is necessary, but it needs to be a just one. Inshore fishing communities in the UK have already borne significant losses from decades of quota decisions that prioritised short-term yield over stock health. A legal and policy settlement that does not account for that history will not hold.

We can also be overly legalistic in our application of environmental laws. Ocean ecosystems are remarkably dynamic, so approaches such as like-for-like environmental compensation are extremely challenging to achieve, particularly on energy projects. Early engagement with environmental NGOs and other specialists can speed the process up. In reality, court cases such as the Dogger Bank case are relatively rare and a last resort.

Recovery is possible

The Dogger Bank demonstrates this as directly as anything in recent marine conservation. Given genuine protection, the seabed recovers. Species return. The nursery of the North Sea can function again as a nursery.

The law can be part of that. The Dogger Bank case, and the Dutch ruling that followed from it, shows what is possible when legal expertise is brought to bear on the right questions at the right moment. More of those moments are coming. Cases are being built, consultations are open, and organisations like Blue Marine are doing work that the whole legal profession can contribute to, whatever the practice area.

We have seen a huge amount of legislation to protect the environment over the last two decades, but in many places it has fallen short and simply become a record of what is there. The question for us all is: what do we want our oceans to be like? Let’s use the law to bring that about.

Further reading

Blue Marine Foundation: bluemarinefoundation.com

MCS Good Fish Guide: mcsuk.org/goodfishguide

Dogger Bank ruling (11 May 2026): Oceanographic Magazine

Lyme Bay recovery case study: Blue Marine Foundation

UK MPA network: JNCC

Dogger Bank map: Wikipedia

To mark World Environment Day 2026 on 5 June, we call on firms to highlight what they are doing to tackle the climate and nature crises on social platforms. We have created three LSA graphics which are available to download below. Send the message #NowForClimate.

Ideas on how you might use this free resource:

• Create a simple internal hub or page where people can browse the library of infographics and look forward to the release of new ones
• Create a weekly “climate moment” through your internal comms, making each infographic part of a predictable rhythm. They are self-contained and self-explanatory but you can build on their power by adding a simple takeaway and or question
• Build a gallery of printed images in your communal areas
• Print a limited run onto playing cards for colleagues who sign up to collect, they’ll end up with a pack of 52
• Turn them into conversation starters for monthly informal discussions; using 3–4 of the infographics prompting questions such as What surprised you? Why is this relevant to our work?
• Use them to support bigger moments, launch them during London Climate Action Week or offer versions for Earth Day

Copyright & Usage Notice

LSA member firms are licensed to download and use these images for educational purposes, including training and upskilling colleagues through internal communications. This license does not permit use in external presentations, commercial marketing materials, or on social media platforms, except when such use is separately permitted under the original copyright terms of The Climate Trunk – ie when using platform generated link previews or unaltered screenshots.