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Natasha Jackson explores a quietly released government report that identifies biodiversity loss as a high national security risk
One of the more remarkable government publications this year arrived with surprisingly little attention. In January, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs quietly published a national security assessment on global ecosystems (Global Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Collapse and National Security (‘the Assessment’)). There was no ministerial statement and relatively little media coverage. Yet the document contains one of the starkest conclusions any British government has reached about the implications of environmental decline: biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse pose a ‘high’ risk to UK national security.
The Assessment is understood to have been prepared through the Joint Intelligence Committee process and applies the analytical framework commonly used in intelligence assessments. Judgements are expressed according to likelihood and confidence, with particular emphasis on ‘reasonable worst-case scenarios’. It is, in other words, not an environmental strategy document but a national security assessment. That distinction is significant.
The report’s central proposition is that severe degradation or collapse of critical ecosystems would generate a series of cascading risks. These include increased migration, greater food and water insecurity, heightened opportunities for organised crime and non-State actors, increased pandemic risk, economic instability and a greater likelihood of conflict within and between States.
‘Cascading risks’ are defined as risks that occur when an adverse impact triggers or amplifies other risks, and the following national security risks from ecosystem collapse are identified as ‘highly likely’:
Particularly striking is the Assessment’s treatment of timing. The Assessment applies the intelligence framework to conservatively assign low confidence to any precise prediction of pathways and timeframes. But it does make an arresting judgement that there is a ‘realistic possibility’ that some ecosystems (including South East Asian coral reefs and boreal forests) will start to collapse from 2030, and others (including rainforests and mangroves) from 2050.
The Assessment emphasises UK exposure through food and fertiliser dependency. The UK imports 40% of its food and is heavily reliant on imports for certain categories (fresh produce, sugar, animal feed, palm oil) and fertiliser components. The Assessment warns that without ‘significant increases’ in resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.
Much of this will be familiar to environmental lawyers and scientists. The novelty lies less in the substance of the conclusions than in the institutional source from which they emerge. Environmental degradation has long been discussed in terms of conservation, sustainability and climate resilience. Here it is discussed in the language of national security.
That shift in framing prompts a number of interesting questions.
The Assessment calls into question the extent to which biodiversity loss can continue to be regarded as a discrete environmental issue. It instead presents ecosystem decline as a systems-risk problem capable of influencing migration, economic stability, public health and geopolitical relations. Whether that framing has implications for future policy-making or decision-making remains to be seen, but it is notable that government’s own analysis approaches biodiversity in these broader terms.
This assessment could accordingly have a bearing on challenges concerning overly narrow decision-making that treat biodiversity impacts as localised or specific to particular regimes (e.g. planning), when government’s own position recognises global cascading effects.
The question of transparency in the context of environmental information is particularly interesting. The assessment’s route into the public domain is almost as interesting as its contents. It is understood that, following reports that the document existed but remained unpublished, an NGO named Green Alliance sought its disclosure through information-rights procedures. The request was initially refused, and Green Alliance pursued an internal review. Before that review concluded, the government published the assessment.
Environmental law has long been shaped by disputes about access to information in the public interest. The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (‘the 2004 Regs’), implementing the UK’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention, proceed from the principle that environmental information should generally be made available to the public unless a recognised exception applies and the public interest favours withholding it. In practice, the regime has become one of the principal mechanisms through which environmental decision-making is scrutinised and important environmental material enters the public domain.
By contrast, national security law necessarily places greater emphasis on confidentiality and risk management. The courts have emphasised the deference owed to the institutional expertise of the executive on national security matters in a number of high-profile judgments of recent years, including the Supreme Court decisions in Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs [2026] AC 607 and Begum v SIAC [2021] AC 765.
Such tensions played out recently in Cross v ICO [2025] UKFTT 0073 (GRC), a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Information Rights on an appeal against a refused request under the 2004 Regs for information relating to greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Security Service. The tribunal (unsurprisingly) came to the view that when environmental material crosses the sensitivity line is context-dependent: information that appears innocuous in isolation can, when combined with other material, permit sensitive inferences to be drawn about operations, infrastructure or capabilities. For this reason, disclosure was not in this case required.
The Cross case is interesting not because it resolves any broad constitutional debate, but because it illustrates an emerging intersection between two areas of law that have historically had relatively little contact. But if the Assessment is correct, this overlap will grow as we move further along the envisaged timeline towards ecosystem collapse. As environmental issues increasingly enter the sphere of national security, these two traditions may find themselves in closer conversation.
I do not wish to overstate the importance of the Assessment’s publication. It does not create new legal obligations, nor does it alter existing statutory duties relating to biodiversity or environmental protection. What it does provide is an unusual insight into how government currently understands the risks associated with ecological decline.
Environmental lawyers have long argued that biodiversity loss has consequences extending far beyond the protection of habitats and species. The national security assessment suggests that this view has gained traction in parts of government not usually associated with environmental policy.
Whether that change in perspective has practical consequences for decision-making, transparency, or environmental governance remains an open question. It is one that practitioners may increasingly encounter in the years ahead.
Natasha Jackson is a barrister at Landmark Chambers, specialising in public, administrative and human rights law and immigration. She has particular expertise in judicial reviews concerning migrant rights and environmental litigation.
One of the more remarkable government publications this year arrived with surprisingly little attention. In January, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs quietly published a national security assessment on global ecosystems (Global Biodiversity Loss and Ecosystem Collapse and National Security (‘the Assessment’)). There was no ministerial statement and relatively little media coverage. Yet the document contains one of the starkest conclusions any British government has reached about the implications of environmental decline: biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse pose a ‘high’ risk to UK national security.
The Assessment is understood to have been prepared through the Joint Intelligence Committee process and applies the analytical framework commonly used in intelligence assessments. Judgements are expressed according to likelihood and confidence, with particular emphasis on ‘reasonable worst-case scenarios’. It is, in other words, not an environmental strategy document but a national security assessment. That distinction is significant.
The report’s central proposition is that severe degradation or collapse of critical ecosystems would generate a series of cascading risks. These include increased migration, greater food and water insecurity, heightened opportunities for organised crime and non-State actors, increased pandemic risk, economic instability and a greater likelihood of conflict within and between States.
‘Cascading risks’ are defined as risks that occur when an adverse impact triggers or amplifies other risks, and the following national security risks from ecosystem collapse are identified as ‘highly likely’:
Particularly striking is the Assessment’s treatment of timing. The Assessment applies the intelligence framework to conservatively assign low confidence to any precise prediction of pathways and timeframes. But it does make an arresting judgement that there is a ‘realistic possibility’ that some ecosystems (including South East Asian coral reefs and boreal forests) will start to collapse from 2030, and others (including rainforests and mangroves) from 2050.
The Assessment emphasises UK exposure through food and fertiliser dependency. The UK imports 40% of its food and is heavily reliant on imports for certain categories (fresh produce, sugar, animal feed, palm oil) and fertiliser components. The Assessment warns that without ‘significant increases’ in resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.
Much of this will be familiar to environmental lawyers and scientists. The novelty lies less in the substance of the conclusions than in the institutional source from which they emerge. Environmental degradation has long been discussed in terms of conservation, sustainability and climate resilience. Here it is discussed in the language of national security.
That shift in framing prompts a number of interesting questions.
The Assessment calls into question the extent to which biodiversity loss can continue to be regarded as a discrete environmental issue. It instead presents ecosystem decline as a systems-risk problem capable of influencing migration, economic stability, public health and geopolitical relations. Whether that framing has implications for future policy-making or decision-making remains to be seen, but it is notable that government’s own analysis approaches biodiversity in these broader terms.
This assessment could accordingly have a bearing on challenges concerning overly narrow decision-making that treat biodiversity impacts as localised or specific to particular regimes (e.g. planning), when government’s own position recognises global cascading effects.
The question of transparency in the context of environmental information is particularly interesting. The assessment’s route into the public domain is almost as interesting as its contents. It is understood that, following reports that the document existed but remained unpublished, an NGO named Green Alliance sought its disclosure through information-rights procedures. The request was initially refused, and Green Alliance pursued an internal review. Before that review concluded, the government published the assessment.
Environmental law has long been shaped by disputes about access to information in the public interest. The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (‘the 2004 Regs’), implementing the UK’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention, proceed from the principle that environmental information should generally be made available to the public unless a recognised exception applies and the public interest favours withholding it. In practice, the regime has become one of the principal mechanisms through which environmental decision-making is scrutinised and important environmental material enters the public domain.
By contrast, national security law necessarily places greater emphasis on confidentiality and risk management. The courts have emphasised the deference owed to the institutional expertise of the executive on national security matters in a number of high-profile judgments of recent years, including the Supreme Court decisions in Shvidler v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs [2026] AC 607 and Begum v SIAC [2021] AC 765.
Such tensions played out recently in Cross v ICO [2025] UKFTT 0073 (GRC), a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Information Rights on an appeal against a refused request under the 2004 Regs for information relating to greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Security Service. The tribunal (unsurprisingly) came to the view that when environmental material crosses the sensitivity line is context-dependent: information that appears innocuous in isolation can, when combined with other material, permit sensitive inferences to be drawn about operations, infrastructure or capabilities. For this reason, disclosure was not in this case required.
The Cross case is interesting not because it resolves any broad constitutional debate, but because it illustrates an emerging intersection between two areas of law that have historically had relatively little contact. But if the Assessment is correct, this overlap will grow as we move further along the envisaged timeline towards ecosystem collapse. As environmental issues increasingly enter the sphere of national security, these two traditions may find themselves in closer conversation.
I do not wish to overstate the importance of the Assessment’s publication. It does not create new legal obligations, nor does it alter existing statutory duties relating to biodiversity or environmental protection. What it does provide is an unusual insight into how government currently understands the risks associated with ecological decline.
Environmental lawyers have long argued that biodiversity loss has consequences extending far beyond the protection of habitats and species. The national security assessment suggests that this view has gained traction in parts of government not usually associated with environmental policy.
Whether that change in perspective has practical consequences for decision-making, transparency, or environmental governance remains an open question. It is one that practitioners may increasingly encounter in the years ahead.
Natasha Jackson explores a quietly released government report that identifies biodiversity loss as a high national security risk
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