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All That Glisters
is not green!
Asked to think of what constitutes “important countryside”, many of us think of rolling farmland and fields, woods and hedges as the nation’s wildlife havens. Asked where new development should be, many echo the government cry of “Brownfield” or derelict land sites. Indeed such sites have been the focus of ‘improvement’ or reclamation grants for many years.
But - and yes, it is a big but - take a look at the government’s biodiversity targets for Britain. Many of the species that we should be conserving, as our international duty, survive on so-called derelict land.
Brownfield sites under threat
Disturbed sites that have been abandoned and had the chance to recolonise without
interference from people or from grandiose landscape plans can be rich in species
numbers, or home to the unusual or rare. Ironically, farmland, although often
green belt and thereby protected from development, is most likely to be of less
importance to wildlife because of the nature of the modern agricultural business.
From a conservation perspective, sites that support plant and animal communities that have resulted entirely from natural colonisation can be considered to be of the highest value. It is on these sites that local genotypes have been preserved and the processes of natural colonisation can be most easily observed. Sites that have developed over a long period of time being of particular importance in that they will often have accumulated species from a surrounding landscape very different from that which exists today. These early successional communities are of particular value as the bare or sparsely vegetated ground provides opportunities for invertebrates and annual plants not found in other habitats.
Brownfield sites are increasingly coming under greater threat and with them some of the nations rarest wildlife. Threats are many and varied and include;
Mass extinction!
Cannock Chase Council’s district is about 8,000 hectares in size and is,
historically, a mining area. These threats have reduced the legacy of (wildlife
rich) disturbed-ground sites to just 20 hectares. Cannock Chase district has
just 32 hectares of species-rich grassland, 62% of which is on Brownfield sites.
The district of Cannock Chase is on the verge of it’s own mass extinction! Already extinct in the district, as a result of reclamation, are the Grizzled Skipper butterfly and Wild Parsnip. There are a further 34 recorded species that are under extreme threat. Furthermore, as sufficient resources have yet to be allocated to undertake a survey of all zoological groups, these extinctions are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Gone
Depending on your beliefs and values, the decline in Brownfield sites, and with
them their associated flora and fauna, could be viewed an economic regeneration
success story or an ecological disaster. How can further loss be prevented?
The answer is simple, the wildlife value of brownfield sites needs to be more
widely acknowledged.
Wildlife Havens
Each site needs to be considered individually. Some will be of little ecological
value whilst others will be veritable wildlife havens worthy of LNR, SSSI or
NNR status If a chance walk by an experienced ecologist across a pit mound can
save one of the UK’s rarest plants (penny royal Mentha pulegium) from
destruction and extinction in the Cannock Chase District, imagine how a survey
of all Brownfield sites would improve the quality of policy decision-making
across the country.
Through discussions and by bringing considerable pressure over a number of years, the strategic planners in Cannock have come to realise that there is significant difference between a recently abandoned factory site and land that at some point in the past had some sort of development on it but has naturally recolonised.
Do you know the situation in your area?
Remember - It is no coincidence that the first syllable of reclamation is wreck
S. Barnes
Countryside Officer (ecology)
Phil Armshaw
Countryside Officer (accessibility)
(First published in the CMA Midlands Region Newsletter)