The Wildlife Trusts’ new report, Secret Spaces: The status of England’s Local Wildlife Sites 2014, draws on evidence gathered this year showing that more than 10% of the 6,590 monitored Local Wildlife Sites have been lost or damaged in the last five years.
With predicted growth in housing, new roads and other infrastructure all set to increase, changes to farm environment schemes reducing incentives for owners to gain support for Local Wildlife Site management, and austerity measures which threaten the management of publicly-owned Local Wildlife Sites, these last important refuges for wildlife remain vulnerable.
According to The Wildlife Trusts’ Director, England, Stephen Trotter, if this trend is allowed to continue, more of our most valuable and treasured wildlife and wild places will be lost forever. He said: “There is a real and pressing need for Local Wildlife Sites – one of England’s largest natural assets – to receive the recognition of their true value to society. In some counties they are the best places for wildlife but they continue to slip through our fingers like sand.
“Local Wildlife Sites are the Cinderella of the natural environment. Many are quiet, unnoticed wild places in which nature thrives. All act as links and corridors between other important habitats and are crucial to securing nature’s recovery. They are vitally important for people as well as wildlife; bringing tangible benefits to local communities and contributing significantly to our quality of life, health, well-being and education. We need to secure greater recognition and protection for them in the planning and decision-making process. We need action now to prevent further and ongoing loss of these wildlife-rich treasures by investment in them.
Paul Wilkinson, Head of Living Landscape at The Wildlife Trusts, added: “Those Local Wildlife Sites which are thriving are frequently a legacy of the goodwill and care of their landowners and managers and of decades of hard graft. We’re making recommendations for the provision and prioritisation of funding, resources, landowner advice and volunteer support – all of which are so desperately needed – underpinned by a Nature and Wellbeing Act.” (see recommendations in full below)
Secret Spaces: The status of England’s Local Wildlife Sites 2014 – makes recommendations to help stop this devastating loss:
1. Greater recognition and protection for Local Wildlife Sites: Local authorities and developers need to fully recognise the importance of Local Wildlife Sites in the planning and decision-making process. Natural England must strengthen its standing advice to local authorities on Local Wildlife Sites.
2. Local ecological networks: Local plans should be required to create a high quality network of more, bigger, better and joined up wildlife-rich places including Local Wildlife Sites. These must be designed and planned from the bottom up, involving local people and close to where they live.
3. Provide targeted funding: Defra, Forestry Commission, Environment Agency and Natural England must prioritise funding and specialist advice to landowners and farmers for the enhancement and management of Local Wildlife Sites through Countryside Stewardship and other grants schemes.
4. Support volunteers, local organisations and local communities: Local authorities and Government should support volunteering and resource Local Wildlife Site partnerships as a cost effective way of looking after many of these special places and helping local people to get involved in looking after them.
5. A Nature and Wellbeing Act: We urgently need new legislation for the 21st century to underpin the recovery of nature and secure improvements in the health and wellbeing of local people and communities. The Wildlife Trusts and RSPB have put forward proposals for a Nature and Wellbeing Act to do just this. Developing a coherent network of high quality Local Wildlife Sites and other natural spaces like parks and river corridors would be a key part of this Act. Local Wildlife Sites hold much of England’s wildlife and as such they are key to realising the benefits which nature can provide society.
The status of England’s Local Wildlife Sites 2014 is the seventh in a series of reports issued every three years by The Wildlife Trusts. From Monday 22 December, you can download this and a summary report Secret Spaces: The status of Local Wildlife Sites 2014 & why these special places need saving by clicking here.
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It is worth reminding ourselves, (I believe this is right), that under the current system SSSIs are designated because they are good EXAMPLES of a particular type of habitat and because they contain some important species. By implication this means that other important wildlife sites, , may miss receiving the SSSI designation and become Local Wildlife Sites (LWCs) instead. However these sites could be, and probably are, just as valuable to wildlife as an SSSI. This is why LWCs are so important and need the recognition that, as you rightly point out Mark, they don’t receive at present. .
Yes, there is a danger that planners perceive local wildlife sites as being the lowest level of designated sites and therefore not that worthy of protection. The proposed development of the Sanctuary Nature Reserve in Derby was perhaps an example of this. Fortunately that was defeated but it showed that planners do not necessarily see these sites as sacrosanct whatever it might say in their Local Development Framework.
Even if LWS are, on average, less special than SSSIs it is still vital that we protect them, otherwise the continual erosion of the ‘not quite the best sites’ will result in a small number of protected ‘museum’ sites isolated from one another by miles of ecologically sterile countryside.
Or you end up in the situation where a site is dually allocated, both as a Local Wildlife Site and for development. An absurd situation, but I’ve seen it happen twice…
Ramsar/WHS… world importance…international treaty.
SAC/SPA Importance on a EU scale…EU directives.
SSSI’s best examples, UK series…protected by “consultation and co-operation”.
LWS protected by tissue paper.
About 85% of our wildlife is in the wider countryside outwith protected sites….protected by the planning system where of course there is a presumption in favour of development.
Interesting that Doncaster was a no response, home to the incredibly expensive much heralded Potteric Carr (also SSSI) Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Reserve. Millions spent & sadly, still no breeding bitterns …. In terms of LWS lots of other little gems, lost to development or mis management.
Obsession with Bitterns etc., at the expense of wildlife of the wider countryside is one of our modern malaises. I’m delighted we have record numbers of Bitterns but to be frank I’d rather see Partridges and Corn Buntings in the fields around my house.
john – so would I, but wildlife NGOs don’t rule the world, so it’s not that easy.
I find this sort of article interesting. Indeed local wildlife sites are in danger you can see that wildlife on SSSI’s are not protected. Important rare and strictly protected species are ignored, glossed over when the bulldozers come in to do their work. I am not talking about development sites no this happens on the most important sites for nature conservation.
Habitats are destroyed and reduced to bare ground in order to restore a habitat on woodland the heather heathland. Important habitat features for newts, dormice, nightingales, adders and many other species are swept away in order to try and turn the clock back to the 1980s when the site was designated as a SSSI.
In many cases luckily the sites are large enough for species to repopulate but in some there are no chance of animals coming back. There is often little survey before hand and very little monitoring of the management of nature reserves. Even where species are interest features of SSSI for example all the herpetofauna naturally found in Epping Forest are not really taken seriously. The management of the plains are not monitored or mitigated to reduce the damage to these interest features through grazing, tree clearance and mowing for restoring heather stands.
My question is if SSSI protection isn’t a deterrent to damaging interest features how can you expect landowners to protect local wildlife sites?