ITV News has seen a classified government intelligence report which appears to show some of the most worrying potential impacts of nature loss weren't disclosed to the public.
In January, the government published a report on the security and economic threats resulting from nature decline.
The long-awaited government-commissioned report had initially been scheduled for an autumn release. Although the government received the report, it chose not to publish it and cancelled the launch. After pressure from campaign groups, including a freedom of information request (FOI), it was released in January.
However, a summary version was published, leaving out some of the key points experts had found.
ITV News has seen extracts of the full report and can now reveal some of the warnings the government chose not to publish.
Economy
The report, which was released publicly, warns that drought, flooding and environmental decline could damage the economy, but it does not offer any specific figures.
The full report shows that intelligence chiefs project that nature loss could lead to annual "GDP being 12% lower than it would have been otherwise by 2030.”
To contextualise, we spend around 11% of our GDP annually on the NHS.
“If we don’t deal with nature loss, the consequences of that could be as stark [as a 12% loss] - it’s more than double what we saw in the financial crisis," says Angela Francis, Director of Policy Solutions at WWF.
“The government, rather than explaining to people what it needs to do to tackle those problems, is just trying to hide from the problem because it knows that food prices and cost of living is such a concern."
Food security
The UK currently grows around 60% of the food we eat. The shorter report highlights food security as a key risk, but the full report goes further.
It notes that the "UK [is] increasingly exposed to state threats, particularly if our food system becomes a more vulnerable or desirable target.” It also highlights the “risk of NATO being drawn into escalating conflicts over arable land" such as the "breadbaskets" of Ukraine and Russia.
Lt Gen Richard Nugee is a retired Senior British Army Officer and also a strategic advisor for climate, security and defence. He says the report is a "seminal" moment.
“It is very significant indeed," he said.
“The government has admitted for the first time that climate and biodiversity loss are parts of our national security. They don’t do that lightly, and what that shows is that actually, we should be concerned for our security as a homeland.
"We must build our homeland resilience because otherwise we are putting our citizens at risk.”
Nature and water security
The published report also discusses the collapse of global ecosystems, including rainforests and coral reefs. But some of the most concerning details are missing.
For example, while it mentions the risk of diseases emerging as frozen ground thaws in northern forests, the documents seen by ITV News specifically reference “Anthrax” and the potential for “mass mortality” events in worst-case scenarios.
Similarly, while the short report notes the risk of water shortages in the Himalayas, it omits the warnings ITV News has seen in the longer version - that shrinking glaciers could “almost certainly escalate tension” between China, India and Pakistan - increasing the “threat of nuclear exchanges".
Another key impact of climate-induced nature degradation is the increase in migration as people are forced to move from areas with increasingly scarce resources.
The full report specifically warns of the impact this will have in the UK, with a potential rise in “polarised and populist politics", as well as pressure on national infrastructure.
ITV News can exclusively reveal that 25 nature organisations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Wildlife Trusts, have written a letter to the government responding to the original short report, demanding the government take it more seriously and take leadership on an international scale:
“It has huge impacts on our economy, on our future prosperity, on our health – it has a lot that is riding on it. Our level of concern is parallel to that. We’re saying, this is a really concerning report and we need to act in a way that addresses that,” says Beccy Speight, the CEO of the RSPB.
Questions remain over why the full report was not released, with some inside sources suggesting it is because the government's own nature policies currently do not reflect the severity of the report’s conclusions.
"It needs to release the full report, and it needs to explain to the public how it is going to start dealing with those risks, rather than giving us a sanitised, simplified version and pretending it can brush it under the carpet,” says Angela Francis.
“If the public doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation and what it could do to this country, then they will never apply pressure to the government to actually do something solid about it,” says Lt Gen Richard Nugee.
ITV News put all these claims to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the government department that published the report.
DEFRA declined an interview but said: “Understanding the security risks arising from biodiversity loss is critical to strengthening the UK’s long-term resilience, and this assessment will inform our actions to prepare the UK for the future.