2002 Report

Successes:

SUCCESSES

Overview of successes

Over 1500 organisations, from a wide range of sectors, are involved in implementing local and UK Biodiversity Action Plans.
In addition to achieving wildlife gain, significant progress has been made in engaging communities and in raising the profile of biodiversity conservation in society as a whole.
Examples of successes and good practice provided by Lead Partners and Local Biodiversity Action Plans can be accessed from this section.

Identifying and publicising the key successes of local and UK action plans is important, not just to celebrate and demonstrate progress, but as a means of communicating experience and sharing good practice. Earlier sections of this report have listed a number of successes that have been made in improving the status of UK BAP priority species and habitats, increasing our knowledge, and in delivering targets. This section gives a number of additional examples of wildlife delivery, and also illustrates the excellent progress being made in raising awareness of the importance of biodiversity and in engaging wider society in its conservation.

We now know of over 1500 organisations working on local and UK BAPs, which include representatives of sectors not traditionally associated with conservation work. This is an important illustration of a positive change in the way the whole of society, including the general public and businesses, views and treats biodiversity conservation.

The organisations involved in Local Biodiversity Action Plan partnerships were separated into broad categories (Figure 1) that were developed to try to measure the range of cross-sectoral organisations involved in conservation at a local level. Click here to see the composition of these categories.

Other Conservation Bodies and Local Government feature strongly in Local Biodiversity Action Plan partnerships as expected. These groups either employ the officers or form a large part of their Local Biodiversity Action Plan duties. However, if partnerships are to be inclusive, Land Management, Business and the Scientific categories should be better represented.

It is important to note that Local Biodiversity Action Plan partnerships go through different stages from planning through to implementation. As the plan progresses through these stages more organisations are drawn into the partnership. Although these data are not available, it would be useful to record the stage at which the different Local Biodiversity Action Plans are at. Nonetheless, the great potential of Local Biodiversity Action Plans in influencing sustainable delivery of biodiversity conservation can be appreciated by considering the range of organisations currently engaged in conservation action (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The categories of organisations involved in Local Biodiversity Action Plan partnerships across the UK

To investigate the achievements of these partnerships, Local Biodiversity Plan officers were asked to report on their successes.

Question posed to Local Biodiversity Action Plan officers :

Please list up to five habitats, five species and five other successes in the implementation of your plan for which you feel your Local Biodiversity Action Plan has been most successful (this can include both UK and local priorities). Please briefly describe what has been achieved/progress made. Please try to quantify achievements or contributions to UK targets where possible, using the boxes provided.

Responses for habitats were received for 70 (43%) Local Biodiversity Action Plans
Responses for species were received for 68 (42%) Local Biodiversity Action Plans
Responses for other successes were received for 75 (46%) Local Biodiversity Action Plans

Notable successes

The most common success reported for Local Biodiversity Action Plans was in communication and raising awareness, where local action has a critical role to play in gaining popular support to make UK BAP delivery sustainable in the long term (Figure 2). Examples include:

In the Western Isles, local school groups have been involved in collecting wild flower seeds to establish a seed bank of local provenance for use in new road projects.
The Rhondda Cynon Taff LBAP partnership organised a Great Spider Hunt in 2001, raising awareness of spiders, the importance of recording, and of biodiversity as a whole.
The Purbeck LBAP partnership has organised habitat management events which attracted over 200 local land managers, contractors and advisors.
The Cairngorms LBAP partnership has provided advice to partners and developers on a variety of biodiversity projects to help avoid damaging developments being brought forward. By doing this, significant conflict has been avoided.
The Nottinghamshire LBAP partnership has positively engaged with all the local Community Strategy processes, benefiting biodiversity by raising awareness, illustrating the importance of biodiversity for achieving social, economic and environmental objectives, and having measurable impact on biodiversity at ground level.

Figure 2: Ranking of other successes reported by Local Biodiversity Action Plan officers

Habitats

In addition to the communication work and partnership building done by Local Biodiversity Action Plans, they are clearly making important contributions to the delivery of targets for UK BAP priority habitats and have achieved significant wildlife gains for a range of important habitats. Most successes were recorded in the Habitat creation, Management and Restoration categories. Examples include:

Extensive woodland restoration is underway in the Borders, benefiting over 800 hectares of ancient woodland, wet woodland and riparian habitats.
In Falkirk, there have been a number of projects to improve the biodiversity value of urban green space.
In Lincolnshire, plans have been completed for works on the Humber and Wash Estuaries that will result in the creation of approximately 2300 hectares of saltmarsh, mudflats and saline lagoons.
11 hectares of calcareous grassland has been restored in Swansea through invasive species removal using machinery, contractors and local volunteers.

Species

Local Biodiversity Action Plans have similarly made significant contributions to the delivery of targets for UK BAP species and have achieved wildlife gains for a range of species. These successes were dominated by Surveys. Examples include:

In East Lothian a Grey Partridge Project has been established with over 50 farmers and advises on best ways to enhance local partridge populations and provides free wildbird cover seed. The project is largely aimed at sowing wildbird cover on set asides. The Game Conservancy Trust (Lead Partner) has been influential in developing this project.
In Cardiff, the only known site for silver-washed fritillary in the area was surveyed both for violets (larval food plant) and for adults. This survey work was initiated in 2001 and is hoped to allow for continual population monitoring.
In Manchester, surveys for water voles were undertaken during canal construction and banks were reinstated and habitats restored. 800 metres of water vole habitat have been created. The methods used and lessons learned can be used to demonstrate good practice for other projects affecting water vole populations in Greater Manchester.

Lead Partners were also asked to report on their successes.

Question posed to Lead Partners:

Have there been key successes in the implementation of your plan that should be drawn to the attention of government, the wider BAP partnership, or the public? Please give a brief description (i.e. 2-3 sentences) of up to three successes and allocate a topic area to each of them.

Responses to this question were received for 91 (46%) habitats and 291 (75%) species.

Research, Survey and Information comprised 44% of the total and was clearly the main area where Lead Partners were scoring successes (Figure 3). It is interesting that Local Biodiversity Action Plans also recorded surveys as being a major success. Species and habitat management and Partnerships scored 15% and 13% respectively while the other keywords recorded 10% or less (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Ranking of the different success keywords chosen by Lead Partners