The data JNCC maintains regarding the UK’s national site network of Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) has been updated (April 2026).
Protected areas form an important long-standing conservation tool in the UK, and play a key role in our efforts to respond to the global biodiversity crisis, by helping to conserve and restore valuable and vulnerable species and habitats.
As part of our work on protected areas, we maintain a database of information at a UK level of Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), which together form the UK’s national site network. These sites are designated for the protection of birds (SPAs), and habitats and other species (SACs) respectively.
The UK database is updated annually and any changes are reflected in the site Standard Data Forms (SDFs). We have recently (April 2026) published the latest update, along with the accompanying datasets and other associated resources.
This latest update involved minor updates to five Scottish sites, including recalculated area figures for three sites following a spatial boundary update as a result of improved mapping. Further details on this update can be found in the accompanying Change log, and on our Special Protection Areas (SPAs), and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) webpages, where you can also find out more about our work on protected areas.
If you’re interested in being notified when we update our National Site Network information, please sign up to our newsletter.
For more information on the protected area datasets we maintain, visit our protected area datasets webpage.
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