What are they?

Most of us want to help look after our natural environment, and the best place to start is often in our own local patch. Not only can we help Devon’s wildlife to flourish, we can help to improve the quality of our lives and that of our neighbours. Being close to wildlife can be good for the body and soul.

The difficulty can be knowing where to start. What wildlife do you have locally and how can you make a difference? To help communities to become involved in the conservation of their own local environment Devon County Council has produced a number of Parish Biodiversity Audits.

These audits aim to provide basic information on the wildlife and geology of a parish and a few initial ideas for action that can be undertaken locally. They have three basic elements:

1. A description of the Parish’s wildlife, including important habitats and interesting species, accompanied by relevant photographs and maps. The information is largely based on existing records held by the Devon Biodiversity Records Centre but is also supplemented by a day in the field, as well as by the often considerable knowledge held within the community.
2. A section linking the wildlife of the Parish to the Devon Biodiversity and Geodiversity Action Plan (BAP). The Devon BAP provides a framework for co-ordinated action for the County’s most important habitats and species. What we do locally can contribute to county and even national nature conservation priorities.
3. Some initial ideas for local action to help our wildlife. This is by no means a comprehensive list but can help to generate further ideas among the community.

The Parish Biodiversity Audits are just a starting point. It is hoped that they will be adopted by the parishes involved and added to and kept up to date in the coming years, not least because they are a very useful addition to Parish Plans.  An example of a Parish Biodiversity Audit (Northam) is shown below. All the Parish Biodiversity Audits will soon be available to download from this site.

• Northam parish biodiversity audit (1.56MB - pdf help)
• Wildlife sites map for Northam (134KB - pdf help)
• Species map for Northam (149KB - pdf help)

Why not produce your own?

Your parish you may well be able to produce something similar locally. Many parishes have people with a considerable knowledge of the local environment that can be used to produce an audit like that for shown here for Northam, or perhaps a streamlined version of it. Bringing together a group of people to produce a wildlife audit could be a very useful and rewarding experience for your parish.

The Devon Biodiversity Records Centre may be able to supply your Parish with the wildlife records it holds or undertake the Parish biodiversity Audit. They would be happy to discuss the options and the relevant charges with you. There are also many independent consultants that can be employed to work up a Parish Biodiversity Audit (the web site of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management is a useful source of consultants).

To help parishes with this, we will shortly be producing a standard template for a Parish Biodiversity Audit and adding it to this web site. Watch this space for further updates!

Producing a Parish Biodiversity Audit could go a long way to helping your Parish Council meets its biodiversity duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act 2006. Section 40 of the NERC Act places the following biodiversity duty on all public bodies:

‘Every public authority must, in exercising its functions, have regard, so far as is consistent with the proper exercise of those functions, to the purpose of conserving biodiversity’

The duty applies to all local authorities, including parish and town councils. Its purpose is to raise the profile of biodiversity and make it a ‘natural and integral’ part of policy and decision making.

The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has issued guidance for local authorities on implementing this biodiversity duty. It can be downloaded from Defra’s website: www.defra.gov.uk/environment/biodiversity/documents/la-guid-english.pdf.