Nature as Critical Infrastructure: Implications for Resilience Planning from the UK’s National Security Assessment
In January 2026, the UK government published Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security[1], an official national security assessment that treats ecological degradation as a systemic risk to the UK’s national security and prosperity.
It shows how environmental degradation identified in places including the Amazon Rainforest and the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, can disrupt food, water, health, and supply chains, and contribute to wider geopolitical instability. Developed by analysts and experts across government, the assessment supports long-term resilience planning and uses intelligence-style risk analysis to examine reasonable worst-case scenarios.
By identifying ecosystem degradation as a national security risk, this assessment turns biodiversity loss from a long‑term environmental concern into an immediate resilience challenge.
Implications for global resilience practice
Although the assessment focuses on the UK’s resilience, its implications are global.
The risks identified are relevant to all countries, affecting not only domestic resilience but also vulnerability through global connections. For example, a strong theme is the UK’s dependence on imported food and fertilisers. Currently, domestic production cannot feed the population and if ecosystem degradation intensifies geopolitical competition for food, the UK could struggle to maintain stable food supplies without stronger resilience measures. This could lead to price shocks, societal unrest, and health instability, among other things.
For global resilience practitioners, the value of this assessment lies in its approach to applying national security risk thinking to environmental threats and highlighting the cascading impacts.
Recognising ecological degradation as a systemic threat
While the UK government’s assessment is distinctive as it identifies global ecological degradation as a national security risk, other countries and institutions have, or are developing, similar assessments.
Global bodies such as the United Nations and World Economic Forum treat ecosystem degradation as a cause of increasing widespread instability, conflict, and economic disruption.[2] While several European governments are increasingly recognising biodiversity loss as a vulnerability within climate security, food security, and resilience planning.[3]
Increasing environmental risks such as climate threats are a familiar topic for practitioners. BCI research[4] found that climate risk is the second highest concern for organizations over the next 5-10 years, ranking it higher than the challenges of AI and geopolitical changes, and that supply chain disruption was the most cited effect of extreme weather events[5]. However, what the government’s assessment does successfully is put eco degradation firmly on the national risk agenda, highlighting risks outside of climate threat that organisations may not have previously considered.
What this means in practice
Environmental degradation is not one single risk, instead it’s a process that triggers or inflates multiple cascading challenges such as price shocks, supply disruption, including interruption of food and water provision, political instability, and social stresses. For practitioners, this can mean moving beyond individual risk planning toward scenario work that explores how current and future ecological degradation influences and inflates other risks such as civil unrest, cyber security, AI reliance, staff health, and geopolitical changes.
The assessment is also a useful tool that practitioners can use to influence leadership who may not understand, or take seriously, the threat and pace of ecological change to their organisation, and secure budgets and resources to enhance resilience planning.
Every country’s resilience will be affected by the loss of critical ecosystems. Biodiversity, soils, forests, fisheries and water systems enable food security, health, trade, energy, and social stability. Ecosystem loss is a direct and shared challenge for resilience planning across all countries.
Practitioners can learn more about climate risks and resilience planning at BCAW week. On 20 May 2026 we will host: Think you've planned for climate risks? Think again! This series of webinars will show how climate change is already disrupting organisations and steps to make resilience plans genuinely climate ready. Business Continuity & Resilience Awareness Week (BCAW+R) 2026 | BCI
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About the author
Rebecca Mathews
The BCI
