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.
Read the read of the article from BCI here.
