Comments on: New England Biodiversity Strategy – What do you think? http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/2011/08/19/new-england-biodiversity-strategy-what-do-you-think/ Advancing ecology and making it count Tue, 14 May 2013 07:10:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Dr Ronni Edmonds-Brown http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/2011/08/19/new-england-biodiversity-strategy-what-do-you-think/#comment-4038 Dr Ronni Edmonds-Brown Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:05:42 +0000 http://britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/?p=2171#comment-4038 Surface level – very light on precise mechanisms. Where there is more detail is in the freshwater section, this is repeating the legal obligations we have anyway & WFD will deal with much of this. Not sure what they are are intending to do re: abstraction – but thought CAMs were supposed to deal with this. Similarly with much of the Biodiversity targets – if signed up, as we are, to the Convention, we should be doing this anyway.
On habitat connectivity – what is wrong with the Living Landscape approach taken up by the Wildlife Trust? This is a practical approach & involves the public. Am a little worried that they seem to think they can box things up into idealised packages (e.g.woodland) – need a variety of management options so have a variety of stages. One rule does not fit all.
There will be some nice research projects from this – but wouldn’t like to be the group who come up with the Biodiversity indicators (currently advertised on DEFRA pages). Monitoring & surveillance included, but to do properly requires experience, taxonomic skills & money – need to know that is committed. Finally, Target 19: “By 2020, knowledge, the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity, its values, functioning, status and trends, and the consequences of its loss, are improved, widely shared and transferred and applied”. Yipee! does this mean they will be bench marking taxonomy & identification skills within schools & University curriculums? Need to recognise that Biodiversity needs to be prefaced by ‘Taxonomic’. Can’t measure it, improve it etc unless we know what we have & to do that need to be able to identify to species level! Volunteer recorders? nice idea – as Chair of a County Biological Recorders group can report back that we are already overstretched recording within our own Counties & our members, on average, quite elderly. Need new blood, with the skills in an area where competent ID to species level. These skills are in very short supply in the UK.

]]> By: Dr Mark Fisher http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/2011/08/19/new-england-biodiversity-strategy-what-do-you-think/#comment-4037 Dr Mark Fisher Sun, 21 Aug 2011 08:25:23 +0000 http://britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/?p=2171#comment-4037 The strategy is a repetitious series of platitudes, as you point out. It is embarrassing to see how we still refuse to accept that England’s (the UK) approach to nature conservations lacks any real natural integrity. Thus in CBD Strategic Plan Aichiâ targets:
“Target 5: By 2020, the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and fragmentation is significantly reduced”

However, what we have is, according to the strategy:
“Much of Englands wildlife is now restricted to wildlife sites, which consist largely of semi-natural habitats”

The same is true in the Technical Discussion Paper eg.
“blocks of semi- natural habitat”

There is nothing in these documents about the potential for a more integrated approach bringing in natural values, just the seeming reluctance to move past the command and control approach of current biodiversity conservation when it introduces an element of unpredictability. This is particularly true for woodland, with the strategy dogmatically pursuing a policy of every woodland being managed on some spurious notion of ideal state, when we do have areas of non-invention woodland with high, intrinsic natural value that will be put at threat by this dogma. We really must take an honest look at the UK’s obligations for the measures required under Article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and particularly the question of natural integrity when it comes to the requirement to establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken (8a) in the protection of ecosystems, natural habitats and the maintenance of viable populations of species in natural surroundings (8d) and the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded ecosystems and the recovery of threatened species (8f)

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