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The BioPartner

3rd Edition, Spring 2004

Round 1 of Action Plans Review Finished

We can now happily announce that the review of all Round 1 Action Plans (4 HAPs, 9 SAPs and 7 Generic Plans) has now concluded.  Only the Tower Mustard Species Action Plan is temporarily on hold as the London Borough of Richmond has offered to take over the lead as most of the tower mustard sites are found in this borough.  Thanks to collaboration of several organisations we now have a new Reedbeds HAP, a Built Structure GAP and an Audit for Rivers and Streams.  Hard copies of all reviewed plans will be distributed shortly and will be available on our newly revamped website.  

Guidelines and timetable for the review of Round 2 Action Plans (6 HAPs, 2 SAPs) taking into consideration the feedback received from our first review will be circulated shortly.  We advise all Leads and their working groups involved in this new review round to start assessing the performance of their action plans in the past three years.

LBP Business Plan

Earlier in February the first Business Plan Consultation Event facilitated by CAG Consultants took place at City Hall.  Thirty-nine stakeholders and members of the partnership attended to discuss our vision, aims and perceived outputs for the future.  The event was shortly followed by a set of interviews were 17 key stakeholders provided further information on the desired organisational structure, legal status and the sources of funding.  By now you should all have received a copy of the first draft plan and CAG Consultants is currently organising the second feedback event which will take place again at City Hall on the 11th of May.  I’ll be grateful if you could let me know if you are planning to attend.  Please feel free to send any comments about the draft plan to sp@cagconsult.co.uk

New sites for London mistletoe

Recent months have seen the continuation of the mistletoe introduction programme begun in 2002.  This aims to introduce mistletoe to secure new sites in London.  The sites are being carefully chosen - and must have suitable host trees, secure long-term management and a commitment to monitoring.

Most of the donor material (berries!) has come from Myddelton House (LVRPA) and Hampton Court.  The berries are ripe in February and March and germination is more reliable then, but grazing by birds often reduces the supplies available.  This year most of the supply was from
Hampton Court - which has an abundance of mistletoe despite losing some during the felling of some of their Limes back in October.

Many sites are involved in the introduction scheme.  The current list, including those planned for 2005 plantings, includes Chelsea Physic Garden, the Wetlands Centre and environs, Chiswick House Grounds, Syon Park, Kew Gardens, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Hampstead Heath, Railway Fields Nature Reserve, and various sites in Enfield, Brent and Richmond.  Berries are planted by hand, often from a cherry picker high in the trees.  Initial growth is very slow, and we won't be able to see new plants of any size for several years.
Further info from jonathanbriggs@mistletoe.org.uk 
Control to conserve.

We have been saying for some time now that our efforts to conserve water voles through habitat work and translocations will be wasted unless we tackle the mink 'problem'.  Until recently this had seemed an almost impossible undertaking but with the development of the Game Conservancy's mink monitoring raft we may now have a practical answer. This simple but effective tool will enable us to trap at a sub-catchment level, successfully removing all mink within a few seasons and maintain it as mink-free through early detection of new colonisation. It has been shown that water voles make a dramatic recovery soon after the pressure of mink is removed. Funding has now been secured for the London Water Vole Project and Environment Agency to work on a scheme on the lower river Colne a high priority area due to the extent of the mink and vulnerability of the remaining water voles. This is due to start autumn 2004.
(For more information on the raft visits:  
ww.gct.org.uk/research/mink/gctminkraftleaflet.pdf

Ground breaking forum for The Royal Parks

Regent’s Park was the venue for a ground-breaking event on 17th March as representatives from a range of ethnic community groups get together to discuss how they could be more involved with their local Royal Park.  

The event, organised by Wildlife for All and BEN, the Black Environment Network, brought together leaders from different ethnic community groups including the Asian Resource Centre, the Yaa Asantewaa Arts Centre and the Westminster Racial Equality Council to discuss ways in which their members could access the Royal Parks, and find out about their local biodiversity.

Group leaders took part in a brainstorming session to discuss possible activities such as wild orienteering, healthy green walks, volunteering and night-time safaris for their group members.

The event also gave the leaders the opportunity to explore Regent’s Park, visit Wildlife for All’s mobile roadshow van and set up an e-mail discussion group to ensure best practices, ideas and contacts are shared amongst the ethnic community groups involved with Wildlife for All, and to disseminate ideas into the wider London network.

Wildlife for All, an innovative partnership between The Royal Parks and the RSPB, is an exciting new approach to get Londoners involved with the wildlife found in The Royal Parks.  Working with a range of socially excluded groups, the project is making the wildlife found in the eight Parks more accessible through free activities, volunteer training and support, and formal environmental education.

One of the main aims of the community forum event was to establish ways in which the groups’ involvement with their local Park becomes sustainable, where people from all backgrounds, ages and cultures visit their local Royal Parks on a regular basis to appreciate and enjoy the natural environment.

The forum was a positive first step for many of the groups and a number of pilot sessions are now planned for each group over the next year.

If you would like to know more about ‘Wildlife for All’ please contact the team on 020 7935 7430 or e-mail wildlifeforall@royalparks.gsi.gov.uk 

Darwin Centre Live Event, 'Live and Let Die'

On 25th March, the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre held a lively discussion about extinction, broadcast live on the web.  'Live and Let Die' posed the question - animals become extinct; do we have the right to choose which ones?  The debate featured guest speakers Dr. Norman MacLeod, Keeper of Palaeontology at the NHM, and Tony Juniper, Executive Director, Friends of the Earth.  Several key issues arose:

•	UK conservation focuses on the management of our historic cultural landscape and the species associated with it - not wild, natural systems.  The 'pocket-handkerchief' approach to conserving biodiversity will fail if more attention is not given to preserving functional ecosystems with linkage between sites.
•	We tend to preserve what is globally common but parochially rare, or on the periphery of its range.  We should instead prioritise within the global context and focus on species like bluebell for which the UK has international responsibility.
•	Urban areas are hotspots for pollution and energy wastage - but could cities be the key to sustainable solutions?  How can we reduce our energy use in a place like London today?
•	The UK BAP prioritised species important to biodiversity at the national level, enacted via local partnerships.  It is an imperfect system, but it is working, helping conservation organisations with different skills work together.  It also promotes educational activities that emphasise the importance of local biodiversity, something lacking in formal UK education. 
•	Greater strategic agreement to deliver a simple message is now needed. We need to clarify that the quality of life of people and the sustainability of the planet are inextricably linked.
 
View the discussion at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/darwincentre/live/

Darwin at Downe World Heritage Site

Good news for the London Borough of Bromley, they’ve recently received a letter from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, inviting the Council to work on a formal bid for a proposed World Heritage Site.  According to the offer, the UK Government could submit the nomination to UNESCO in 2007 and work on drawing up a nomination document and management plan, required as part of the bid, has already started.  The bid will be drawn in partnership and support for the proposal is being sought from a variety of sources including scientists in the UK and around the world. 

The proposed area covers Downe House and extends as far as Keston Common in the north and Cudham in the south.  Congratulations to Alister Hayes and his team who have been working very hard to reach this stage as this is part of Bromley’s LBAP’s Policy and Management Generic Target.

If you’ll like more information about this contact alister.hayes@bromley.gov.uk or Peter Martin (Head of Heritage & Urban Design) peter.martin@bromley.gov.uk

Update on Funding

Over the past couple of months, constructive meetings have been held with the Countryside Stewardship scheme and the Heritage Lottery Fund to promote the Partnership’s Funding Strategy.

The regional Countryside Stewardship team is keen to support more projects in London.  Current schemes are mainly in the outer boroughs, but CSS would welcome applications from further into town, especially along the Thames and its tributaries.  The scheme is based on revenue payments in return for agreements to undertake certain works e.g. management of hedgerows, hay meadow or field boundaries or habitat creation such as woodland or hedgerow planting or arable reversion. If the site is a UK priority habitat, of regional importance for nature conservation, lies within one of the regional CS target areas, or includes additional measures for access and interpretation, this will strengthen your case.  Rates are per hectare, which can be discouraging for smaller sites, but applicants such as London boroughs may group a number of different sites together in one bid.  The scheme is to be revised shortly as Environmental Stewardship, which will operate at two levels. For further information see Defra web site or contact: Ann Conquest or Vicky Robinson tel 0118 939 2391. vicky.robinson@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Our meeting with the Heritage Lottery Fund helped to gain insight into how this scheme works. Projects have to meet HLF’s criteria, and in addition we were encouraged to focus on projects in a particular location, where visible improvements will result.  They are less keen on research studies and surveys, unless these are directly linked to on the ground improvements. Competition is tough for the largest grants, and the Partnership will need to face up to prioritising larger bids.  There seems to be far more scope with the smaller grants - £5-50 000.  There is apparently a lack of good environmental applications for the Awards for All scheme (grants up to £5000), although unfortunately a limiting factor is that one organisation can only have up to £5000 per year under this scheme.

Congratulations to the Woodland HAP group who recently was awarded £50,000 grant from HLF for their capital woodlands pilot project.  More information about this project could be obtain from 
meg.game@london.gov.uk 

London Parks and Greenspaces Forum has just been awarded a grant of £20,000 from the Bridge House Estates Trust towards a Parks HAP study of London's garden squares and similar historic gardens.  The project features an ecological survey, focusing on birds, to assess the importance of squares and other small historic gardens for London's biodiversity.  The analysis of the data will seek to identify styles of garden management which are associated with the richest bird life, and this in turn will lead to a best practice booklet on managing historic gardens for nature and people. As well as garden squares, the survey will look at a range of other public gardens in a similar size range for comparison.
Contact jan.hewlett@london.gov.uk for more details