Tuesday, February 15, 2011

"Local Wildlife Sites" - a new designation

West Yorkshire Ecology our Local Records Centre have been asked to review the criteria used for selecting areas that are considered of value in the sub-region. A revised system for designating “Local Wildlife Sites” will replace the existing systems for Sites of Ecological/Geological Importance (SEGI), Sites of Scientific Interest (SSI), Bradford Wildlife Areas (BWA), Site of Wildlife Significance (SWS) and Wakefield Nature Areas (WNA). Local Wildlife Sites (LWS) are sites that are less important than SSSI, SPA etc. and are being named LWS to replace the multiple names that are currently used for such sites in West Yorkshire. The benefits to be derived from designating these sites are:

The planning process – an assumption would be made that they will not developed
Grant funding – stewardship etc. would be more likely to be allowed on such sites
They should be sites local groups should all concentrate on, be this for birds, mammals, plants etc.

The proposed criteria for designating these sites have been published on the WYE website see
http://www.ecology.wyjs.org.uk/wyjs-ecology-ls.asp
The CBCG intend to comment on these criteria but we would welcome input from all local naturalists, once set this system will be applied to any site considered of value to see if it qualifies for designation therefore it is very important that the criteria are correct. Closing date for representations is 21st February so I would appreciate any comments before then.

Thanks
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1 comment:

Goldon Gordon said...

Hi Nick
I know I am not in Calderdale anymore and yes I do have an axe to grind with various offcial bodies about nature conservation in Calderdale. That being said why is it that far more of the conservation budget is spent on administration/ redesignation of nature sites than is actually spent on managing them !

We all know the sites, West Yorkshire Ecology know all the sites. Calderdale know all the sites so why don't they get on with looking after them rather than wasting yet another large amount of cash on this exercise.

The defunct Friends of Cromwell Bottom managed to raise over 15K for contructive conservation work at the gravel pits. The cash is out there for such work but its never accessed by offical groups except for some meaningless exercise like putting in enormous paths across sensitive wildlife sites in the name of "access".

If our experiences over several years are anyhing to go by then Banging/Head/Brickwall are the operative words that spring to mind when attending meetings with such offical bodies in west Yorkshire.

Best of luck with your task mate but I fear its yet another pointless excercise in keeping people in paid conservation jobs not conservation for nature.

PS whatever happened with the relaunch of a "friends of" group for Elland Gravel Pits ? I seem to remember a post or two on the blog last year about this but nothing since ?

1:10 pm

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