Chapter 7 - Sustainable Development, Military Aid to the Civil Authorities and Conflict Prevention
             
Table 7.5 Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Target Condition
Target:
England - 95% of SSSI to be in target condition by 2010
Scotland - 95% of SSSI to be in target condition by 2010
Wales - 85% of SSSI to be in target condition by 2013
Northern Ireland - 95% of ASSI1 to be in target condition by 2013.

'Target condition' means a site is in favourable or unfavourable-recovering condition.
Data for different countries should not be compared due to different counting methods. For the same reason it is not possible to provide an overall UK figure.
SSSIs in England are calculated by area after Natural England undertook a project to unitise all the English SSSIs, allowing them to inform the MOD of the exact SSSI area that the MOD manage.
Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland assess the overall SSSI condition by interest feature rather than by area. As SSSIs are often sizeable, MOD may not own complete SSSIs but share the responsibility with several landowners. MOD can therefore only report on these countries by feature. The statutory nature conservation bodies2 (Natural England, Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and Northern Ireland Environment Agency) have rolling six-year assessment programmes, so may not have assessed sites recently. For details of assessment criteria, please refer to the relevant statutory nature conservation body.

The data in this table are not National Statistics because they have not been assessed as such by the UK Statistics Authority.
Percentage of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Target Condition
            Percentage
  2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10
England 73 78 81 85 92 97
Scotland 76 68 68 68 68 94
Wales 68 75 75 77 78 76
Northern Ireland 60 57 57 57 57 70
Source: Defence Estates
1. Area of Special Scientific Interest (Northern Ireland only).
2. The statutory nature conservation bodies' websites are:
    Natural England: www.naturalengland.gov.uk/
    Countryside Council for Wales: www.ccw.gov.uk/
    Scottish Natural Heritage: www.snh.org.uk/
    Northern Ireland Environment Agency: www.ni-environment.gov.uk
 
SSSI Condition 2010  
        Hectares
As at 1 Apr 2010
 Number of SSSIs Area in target
condition		 Area not in
target condition		 Total area
England
 128 69 139 2 419 71 558
         
        Number
  Number of SSSIs Features in target condition Features not in
target condition		 Total assessed features
Scotland
 22 125 8 133
Wales
 19 48 15 63
Northern Ireland
 2 7 3 10