This guide is for farmers and land managers in England. Nature conservation is devolved, so almost everything below stops at the border. Natural England is the conservation body for England only, and the hedgerow management rules and biodiversity net gain are England-only regimes. In Wales, Natural Resources Wales does the job Natural England does here; Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate frameworks again. If you farm across a border, check both sides.
The law reaches ordinary farming in three ways. Designated land changes what you may do without consent. Some species stay protected wherever they are, so a routine job becomes an offence if you disturb them. And some habitats, hedgerows above all, are protected in their own right.
Who regulates what
There is no single nature regulator for English farmland. Which body you deal with depends on the job.
- Natural England designates and monitors Sites of Special Scientific Interest, consents operations on them, and issues wildlife licences, including for bats, newts and badgers.
- Your local planning authority handles hedgerow removal notices, tree preservation orders and planning permission.
- The Rural Payments Agency enforces the management rules for hedgerows on or next to agricultural land.
- The police, supported by the National Wildlife Crime Unit, investigate wildlife offences, which are criminal.
- The Environment Agency (water and waste) and the Forestry Commission (felling licences) sit outside this guide, but both can be triggered by work that also has a nature dimension — clearing a ditch, or taking trees out of a hedge.
One duty you will see cited is section 40 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, the biodiversity duty. It is not a farm obligation: it binds public authorities, requiring them to consider what they can do to conserve and enhance biodiversity. It reaches you only through the decisions they make about your case.
Sites of Special Scientific Interest on farmland
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is land notified by Natural England for its wildlife, geology or landform. Farmland is heavily represented: species-rich grassland, wet meadow, heath, chalk downland and coastal grazing marsh are all common features.
Natural England notifies you in writing, with a site-specific list of operations needing its consent, made under section 28E of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. On a farm that list typically covers things you would otherwise do without a second thought — ploughing or reseeding, changing stocking levels, applying fertiliser or pesticide, cutting scrub, altering drainage.
Carrying out a listed operation without consent is an offence under section 28P of the Act, as is destroying or damaging the features for which the site was notified, whether or not the operation was on the list. Silence from Natural England is never permission.
Consent is not the only route. Natural England can offer a management agreement, under which you are paid to manage the land in a way that maintains or restores the site's features. Where a refusal blocks what you had planned, that is usually the alternative on the table. You can also appeal a refusal to the Secretary of State.
Protected species on farmland
Species protection does not depend on designation. It follows the animal or plant, so it applies across the whole holding.
Part I of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 is the main source. It protects all wild birds, their eggs, and their nests while in use or being built. Birds listed in Schedule 1, among them barn owl and kingfisher, carry extra protection: it is also an offence to disturb them at or near an active nest. Schedule 5 protects named wild animals, including water vole, great crested newt, all reptiles and all bats. Schedule 8 protects named wild plants.
Badgers have their own statute, the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which makes it an offence to kill, injure or take a badger, to damage, destroy or obstruct a sett, or to disturb a badger occupying one. Bats, great crested newts, otters and dormice are European protected species under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, a stricter regime again: deliberate capture, injury, killing or disturbance is an offence, as is damaging a breeding site or resting place, whether or not the animal was there at the time.
Where you cannot avoid the species, the answer is a licence from Natural England rather than a decision to press on.
Four farm jobs that routinely need a licence or a survey
Cutting hedges or clearing scrub in the nesting season. There is no licence for destroying an active nest and no farming exemption. If a nest is in use, work stops in that stretch until the young have fledged. Timing the job outside March to August avoids the problem; if you cannot, have the length checked immediately before you start. This duty is separate from the calendar cutting ban described below, and neither discharges the other.
Converting or demolishing a barn. Traditional farm buildings are prime bat roosts, and a roost is protected whether or not bats are present when the work happens. Any conversion, re-roofing or demolition of an older building needs a bat survey first, and the result determines whether you need a mitigation licence.
Clearing ditches, banks and field margins. Water voles are protected under Schedule 5, and the offence covers damaging the burrows and bankside vegetation they shelter in, not just harming the animal. Survey first, then either work around the occupied stretches or apply for a licence. Where a pond is involved, great crested newts raise the same question, and in participating areas Natural England's district level licensing scheme can be quicker than an individual licence.
Working near a badger sett. Setts in field margins, banks and spinneys are common, and the protection covers the sett itself. Interference — including blocking entrances, or work close enough to disturb the animals — needs a licence, and closure is only permitted outside the breeding season. Identify setts at the planning stage.
Pest and predator control: general licences
Farm pest control is lawful only because a licence permits it: the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 protects every wild bird, including the ones you may need to control. Natural England issues general licences that let you act without applying individually, provided you meet the conditions. Three cover the control of certain wild birds in England: GL40 for conserving wild birds, flora and fauna, GL41 for public health and safety, and GL42 for preventing serious damage to livestock, crops, foodstuffs and fisheries.
A general licence is not a free pass. You must be satisfied that lawful non-lethal methods would not work, act only for the stated purpose and against the species it names, and keep the records it requires. General licences do not apply on some protected sites, where you need an individual licence. The species lists, conditions and expiry dates are reissued periodically and have changed several times in recent years, so read the current general licence conditions on GOV.UK before you act.
Hedgerows: two separate regimes
Hedgerows on farmland are covered by two sets of rules that are easy to confuse. One governs removal, the other routine management, and complying with one says nothing about the other.
Removal runs under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, enforced by your local planning authority. You give the authority a hedgerow removal notice, it has 42 days to decide, and it can serve a retention notice that stops the removal. Whether it does turns on whether the hedgerow counts as "important" against criteria covering age, species richness and historic boundaries.
Routine management runs under the Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024, in force since 23 May 2024, which replaced the cross-compliance hedgerow rules that lapsed at the end of 2023. Two rules sit at the centre. You must not cultivate, or apply fertilisers or pesticides, within a 2-metre buffer measured from the centre of the hedgerow, and must keep green cover there. And you must not cut or trim a hedgerow between 1 March and 31 August.
Both rules carry exemptions. The buffer rule does not apply to hedgerows less than five years old, to a parcel of two hectares or less, or next to a dwelling's curtilage. The cutting ban gives way for hedge-laying and coppicing early in the window, for safety work on rights of way, and for dead, diseased or dangerous hedgerows. Cutting in August to sow oilseed rape or temporary grass needs advance notification to the Rural Payments Agency. The agency works advice-first, but has civil sanctions behind the advice.
Invasive non-native species
Section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to release, or allow to escape into the wild, any animal or plant listed in Schedule 9 — on farmland, usually Japanese knotweed, Himalayan balsam or giant hogweed. You are not obliged to clear invasive species from your land, but you must not cause or allow them to spread, and soil contaminated with them is controlled waste, so moving it is a waste offence as well as a wildlife one.
Biodiversity net gain: when it reaches a farm
Biodiversity net gain is a planning requirement introduced by the Environment Act 2021. It is not a farming duty, and ordinary agricultural operations do not trigger it. It reaches a farm business in two situations.
When you build. If you apply for planning permission — for a building outside permitted development, a diversification project or a conversion — the development will normally have to deliver a measurable gain in biodiversity over the pre-development baseline. Exemptions apply to some smaller and self-build schemes. Settle the position with your planning authority before you design the scheme, because the baseline is the habitat you have before you start.
When you sell units. The same regime creates demand a landowner can supply. You can create or enhance habitat on your own land, have it assessed with the statutory biodiversity metric, register it on the national biodiversity gain sites register, and sell the resulting units to developers. This is a long commitment: the habitat must be maintained and monitored for at least 30 years, secured by a section 106 agreement or a conservation covenant that runs with the land. Take legal advice before you sign.
What to do next
Start by establishing what you hold. Check Natural England's designated sites data for SSSIs and Natura sites on or next to your land, walk the farm for setts, ponds, watercourses and older buildings, and note the old or species-rich hedgerows. Then work through the regimes that apply:
- Remove or manage hedgerows lawfully
- Manage access land and SSSIs on your property
- Understanding UK wildlife law for businesses
- Manage invasive non-native species on your land
- Run a shooting, game or wildlife management business
- Comply with Farming Rules for Water
Where you are unsure whether a job needs consent, a licence or a notice, ask before you start. Almost every enforcement case on farmland begins with work that was already done.
Legal basis
Primary legislation and key regulations