LIFESCAPES – WHAT HABITAT WHERE? HOW USING GIS MODELLING CAN HELP

EAST OF EDEN

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LIFESCAPES – WHAT HABITAT WHERE? HOW USING GIS MODELLING CAN HELP BRENDA WILLIAMSON The Lifescapes project is a three-year pilot that will run until the end of March 2004. It is a landscape-scale approach to delivering biodiversity. The Suffolk Coast and Heaths Natural area is one of four pilot areas that are wholly funded

by English Nature – the others are in the Chilterns, the South Downs and Bowland. Another Lifescapes project is currently running in Kent, which is half-funded by English Nature and half-funded by Kent County Council.

All Natural Areas have their own characteristic wildlife, geography, climate and soils, and so they do not follow administrative boundaries. The Suffolk Coast and Heaths Natural Area is important for many Biodiversity Action Plan Priority habitats, including lowland heathland, reedbeds, saline lagoons, cereal field margins, coastal sand dunes, saltmarsh, wet woodlands, coastal vegetated shingle, coastal and floodplain grazing marsh and wood pasture and parkland.

The main reasons for undertaking the work are that: English Nature, along with other statutory organisations in the UK, is responsible for maintaining and enhancing species and habitats.

Many habitat have been reduced in extent and quality in recent decades Many animals and plants are becoming scarcer both inside and outside of nature reserves and other special sites.

A more strategic and integrated approach is needed when making decisions about land management in order to improve the benefits for wildlife and people.

The overall aim of Lifescapes is to find ways of achieving long-term changes to the landscape that are environmentally and economically sustainable, which also deliver broader benefits to society. Lifescapes involves working in the wider countryside – it is a shift in emphasis from the more traditional sitebased approach to nature conservation. The site-based approach has been successful at stemming the loss of core areas of semi-natural habitats, but most plants and animals need to be able to move between sites to ensure their longterm survival, and others, such as bats and farmland birds, need a mixture of habitats within a large area.

The Lifescapes project is working towards the aim of achieving a sustainably managed countryside by: Accumulating environmental information to help people make more informed decisions about land management – access to good environmental data and maps are essential to understanding the landscape and setting out what might be achieved.

Interfacing environmental information with a wide range of data sets – e.g. historical land use, soils.

Producing maps to show shat land management options are feasible given the environmental constraints and opportunities.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 40 (2004)

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Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 40 Increasing awareness and encouraging partnership working for crosscutting issues – land outside of nature reserves is used for many different purposed which can impact on important habitats and species. By increasing awareness and encouraging people to work together, we can come up with solutions that have benefits for both people and wildlife.

The mapping element of the Lifescapes project was sub-contracted to the Suffolk Biological Records Centre. Funding was made available to enable the Records Centre to employ one dedicated staff member for two years and to buy the necessary hardware (a very powerful computer!).

They were expected to produce the following outputs over the two-year period: Computer-based (GIS) maps showing the current extent of, and statistics on, each Biodiversity Action Plan habitat that is present within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Natural Area.

Computer-based (GIS) maps locating generic areas for potential heathland and wetland habitats.

Computer-based (GIS) maps showing priority re-creation areas for each habitat.

Improved targeting of agri-environment schemes is just one of many uses that can be made of the Lifescapes maps. Better access to information and the application of landscape ecology can improve the advice offered to potential applicants for agri-environment schemes. By carefully targeting options under agri-environment schemes to link, buffer or expand existing areas of seminatural habitat, better results can be achieved for wildlife in the most costeffective way.

Brenda Williamson English Nature Suffolk Team Regent House 110 Northgate Street Bury St Edmunds Suffolk

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 40 (2004)