The Berkshire LNP organised the morning session of the LNP and TVERC's 2014 conference. We heard from LNP Steering Group Chair, Oliver Cripps. He updated us on what the LNP had achieved in 2014:
• New recruitments to the LNP Executive board
• Production of 'The Natural Environment in Berkshire: Biodiversity Strategy 2014 – 2020'
• Set an LNP view for Biodiversity Offsetting in Berkshire
• Worked with the Local Enterprise Partnership on their strategy to spend their allocation of EU money
• Worked with Public Health to identify where the LNP had add value to health priorities
• Set up a working group to look at how we can better work with other sectors
• Launched our corporate membership scheme to raise funds to fund the partnership
We are now working to set our priorities for 2015; these will include continued work on:
• Creating a shared vision for the natural environment in Berkshire
• Contributing to the quality of life and local health and wellbeing
• Working with other initiatives and partnerships
In addition we will
• Advise and consult local decision makers about the options for the New Environmental Land Management Scheme, which some of you may have attended a workshop on a few months ago.
We also took the opportunity to thank our current Executive Board Chairman; Andrew Cameron, who has been fundamental to the success of the LNP to date. Andrew has now completed his two years as chair and will be stepping down. The LNP is therefore currently advertising for a new Chairman of the Executive Board. Please get in touch should you like more information.
Launch of The Natural Environment in Berkshire: Biodiversity Strategy 2014–2020
The next session was an introduction to our biodiversity strategy for Berkshire. The Berkshire Local Nature Partnership will assist England in achieving its target of halting the loss to our biodiversity (nature), by working at a local level to identify and implement opportunities to protect our natural environment. The Berkshire Biodiversity Strategy incorporates aspects of targets from the England Biodiversity strategy, which we can achieve here in Berkshire.
This report is available to download here.
Climate Change and Nature: Adapting to Change
Kristen Guida from Climate South East spoke to us about climate change, and what this means for habitats and species. We are expected to have more frequent and severe extreme weather events, sea level rise and an overall warming of our climate over the coming decades. In the South East, climate change vulnerability includes other factors, such as populations growth, areas of significant deprivation and health inequality, major transport links, rural isolation and urban heat and air quality concerns. The natural environment can help society to adapt to climate change impacts; green roofs and walls, allotments, street trees, sustainable urban drainage for example. Partnership working is important to combine knowledge and expertise to find solutions with multiple benefits.
Conference delegates them split up into groups to discuss how we can work together to achieve the objectives set in the LNP's biodiversity strategy.
Workshop Summary
How to increase habitat connectivity by encouraging targeted habitat creation within the Biodiversity Opportunity Areas?
Participants discussed a range of ideas, including the potential role of the LNP to support groups and organisations. This could include providing advice on how to set up, match-making of resources, coordination, provision of expertise and advice. Some of which is already available in the online nature directory.
Neighbourhood planning was seen as a key opportunity for the LNP to engage with. There is a lack of advice for those producing plans regarding how to include the natural environment and this is something that many of the LNP partners would be able to help with.
Landowner relationships were also seen as an opportunity. It was recognised that there are many challenges to land management; the loss of advice services and reduced stewardship agreements. There is an opportunity to provide the advice required for land managers to be able to make informed decisions about land management.
Continuing to have good quality data and evidence was seen as a key task. Wildlife sites are not always accessible, and therefore hard to monitor. There is an opportunity to encourage more local people into recording and monitoring sites.
How can we record the benefits we receive from the natural world?
Participants in this discussion thought about what the term 'value' means to different people and therefore why partnership working is important.
Monetising natural benefits can be useful, especially with links to health and wellbeing to show where savings can be made by enhancing the natural world. Also useful for showing cost savings to business by investing in the natural world, e.g. cooling costs vs tree planting. However this is often very hard to quantify, and we need to be careful as some people may value non-natural uses; for example they may prefer a car park over species rich grassland.
There are also spiritual, social and cultural benefits of green space, changes to which could cause changes to established user groups. There is a need for education to engage the wider community and to explain the different values of green space. Finding case studies (good and bad) could help with this.
The Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre (TVERC) then chaired an afternoon of talks looking at life along Berkshire's rivers. Please contact Helen S Miller regarding these.