Officer - Nature Recovery

Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.

Our Role

Natural England is the Government's adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.

Strategic Outcomes for Nature

Our strategy is framed through four strategic outcomes. Each of these outcomes reinforces and amplifies the others, and together they address environmental, social and economic actions critical to thriving nature.

Recovering Nature- Increased scale and quality of places where nature thrives.

Building Better Places- Greener homes and infrastructure create healthier, more investable places, recognising we live better where nature thrives around us.

Improving Health and Wellbeing- Build nature into everyday life so people can support, access and benefit from nature, wherever they live.

Delivering Security through Nature- Nature helps us adapt to the threats of a changing climate and improves our national security, supporting more resilient food production, healthy soils, clean and plentiful water and clean air.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at:

Natural England's Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK.

The Team

Our team covers Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, working across some of England's most diverse and inspiring landscapes. From the granite uplands of Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor to the dramatic coastlines, estuaries and river valleys of the South West, the area is rich in natural beauty, wildlife, numerous protected landscapes, rivers and cultural heritage.

Our team contributes to a huge range of work that underpins environmental conservation, including supporting sustainable development, advising and supporting farm businesses, overseeing protected sites, managing National Nature Reserves, supporting nature recovery across landscapes and helping people connect with nature.

As a Nature Recovery Senior Officer, you will work within the People & Nature teamlet, which comprises staff with a range of specialisms including in protected landscapes, species recovery, nature connection, health & wellbeing and green infrastructure. Along with colleagues throughout the area team, we work together to support delivery of a range of projects and partnerships linked to Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS). The team helps deliver practical environmental improvements across some of the country's most valued landscapes, supporting nature recovery while building trusted relationships with an array of partners and communities. This makes the role varied, rewarding and highly visible, with the opportunity to see the impact of your work first-hand.

Team members are based both at the Met Office in Exeter and Milestone House in Truro. The role holder will be expected to be based in Cornwall.

The role reports to a Senior Manager for line management, while technical advice and support is provided by senior officers from the relevant work areas., This role will work alongside their counterpart Nature Recovery Senior Officer based in Devon, wider area team colleagues, and external partners & stakeholders, to drive forward delivery of large-scale nature recovery across our priority places and LNRS opportunity areas.

The role will also be the area teams Species Recovery lead, acting as the first point of contact with a strategic overview of species work in the area. Their role will be to connect, collaborate and engage with others to enable the local delivery of the species recovery targets and actions. They will drive local species recovery forward by helping to embed species recovery action into NE work areas and agendas, streamline species priorities and provide support to local species projects.

While the Cornwall-based Nature Recover Senior Officer will hold the species specialism, the Devon-based officer, will be the area teams Protected Landscapes lead; with the roles complementing each other to share expertise across the whole of Devon, Cornwall & Isles of Scilly.

The role holder will support existing nature recovery partnerships across Cornwall, central to which is the Linking the Lizard partnership on our flagship National Nature Reserve on the Lizard peninsula. A requirement of this role is to maintain a strong, consistent presence in this landscape, critical to building and sustaining effective working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders. Delivering successful nature recovery in this area will depend on regular, in-person engagement, attending meetings & site visits, developing trust and working collaboratively with those managing the land.

Building networks and partnerships in other key areas such as the Mid Cornwall Moors, Bodmin, and developing our work on the 'coastal wildbelt' with also be important focus areas. The role holder will also be our key contact for Cornwall Council, Cornwall National Landscape and the Isles of Scilly National Landscape.