How Much Wildlife Has London Lost? Questions Raised Over Missing Biodiversity Figures

5th November 20265th November 2026 Francesca Lilleystone 0 Comments Green Spaces, Havering, London, Wildlife min read

Wildlife across England has suffered a significant decline, but how much of London’s natural habitat and wildlife has been lost remains difficult to establish, with calls for better monitoring and more reliable figures to show what is happening to the capital’s biodiversity.

Government figures published in May 2026 show that the average abundance of monitored species in England fell by around 40% between 1970 and 2024. The indicator for priority species recorded an even greater decline, of around 80%.

However, these figures cover England as a whole and do not provide a separate measurement of wildlife loss across London.

The Greater London Authority’s 2025 State of London report recorded 31,666 hectares of land designated as Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs). This represented an increase of just over 950 hectares between 2013 and 2024, with 114 additional designated sites recorded.

While this provides an indication of the land protected for its nature conservation importance, it does not establish whether wildlife populations have recovered or how much habitat may have been lost elsewhere.

London’s green cover was estimated at 51.7%, with tree canopy covering 19.6% of the capital, according to the GLA’s assessment based primarily on 2022 imagery.

The figures highlight the importance of protecting London’s green spaces, but they do not provide a complete picture of the wildlife living within them or how populations have changed over time.

There are also questions about the information available to assess the impact of development on wildlife.

London’s 2026 Local Nature Recovery Strategy identifies gaps in up-to-date biodiversity information across the capital and highlights the need for improved monitoring and better understanding of species populations and the threats they face.

The strategy also records that only 1.57% of planning applications were supported by a Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL) wildlife data search between April 2023 and March 2024.

This figure relates specifically to the use of GiGL data searches. It does not mean that the remaining applications had no ecological assessments, but it does raise questions about how consistently existing wildlife records are being used when development proposals are considered.

GiGL, which holds more than 12 million wildlife records, is one of the organisations helping to build a picture of London’s natural environment.

For residents, the issue is not simply about protecting green spaces on a map. It is also about the wildlife that depends on those spaces, including birds, bats, hedgehogs, insects, amphibians and other species.

As London continues to face pressure to provide more homes and infrastructure, questions remain about how effectively wildlife habitats are being protected, whether populations are being monitored and what happens when development affects established habitats.

The Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority are being asked to provide clearer information on how much habitat has been lost across the capital over the past 10 and 20 years, how many protected and priority species have experienced population declines, and how much habitat has been restored or created through development.

There are also questions about how biodiversity protections are monitored after building work has been completed, and whether there is sufficient information to establish whether promised improvements have actually benefited wildlife.

The available figures show that nature conservation land has increased in London, while wildlife populations across England have experienced substantial declines. They do not, however, provide a definitive answer to how much wildlife London has lost.

The challenge is to ensure that the capital’s natural environment is not only protected on paper, but that the wildlife living within it has a future.

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