GEOSUFFOLK RIGS
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A GEODIVERSITY ACTION PLAN FOR SUFFOLK T. HOLT-WILSON It is easy to overlook geodiversity, although it is frequently staring us in the face: the rocks, soils, landforms and landscape-forming processes that make up the substrate for all living things, including human life. Geodiversity is a term for these non-biological aspects of nature (excluding climate). It is an unfamiliar term, but one which is being used with increasing frequency in the worlds of nature conservation and planning policy. While biodiversity conservation is well advanced in Britain, with a national Biodiversity Action Plan co-ordinating Local Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs), Habitat Action Plans and Species Recovery Programmes, forming a “torrent of effort being put into the management of biodiversity” (Jerie et al., 2001, in Gray, 2004), geodiversity conservation has until lately been the poor relation. Although geological and geomorphological conservation has a long history, its importance has not always been recognised by the wider nature conservation community nor the public (Gray, 2004). Furthermore what we might call earth heritage’s ‘community of interest’ has lagged behind that of wildlife in its designation of local reserves: the RIGS scheme for conserving local geo-sites is not yet extended across the United Kingdom (UKRIGS, 2006). In Suffolk, over 880 County Wildlife Sites but only 7 RIGS have been designated. However, the linkage between geodiversity and biodiversity is being more explicitly recognised and promoted at a national level (English Nature, 2004). The Natural Areas concept developed by English Nature in the 1990s as a strategic, landscape-scale approach to nature conservation has geodiversity at its core by defining 97 terrestrial Areas based on rocks, soils and landforms (English Nature, 1998). Geodiversity is also contributing to landscape conservation, which is currently being integrated into the planning system through the Landscape Character Types concept which places human settlement and land-use patterns into their context of rock types, soils and landforms (Landscape Character Network, 2007). Recently, English Nature, the Countryside Agency and DEFRA’s Rural Development Service have jointly published Natural Foundations: geodiversity for people, places and nature as a step towards an integrated approach to environmental conservation, management and enhancement, by linking biodiversity, landscape and human life (Stace & Larwood, 2006). This integrated approach is reflected in the Local Geodiversity Action Plans (LGAPs) concept, first proposed by English Nature in 2001 and modelled on the successful BAP format. The idea was to move away from the exclusively site-based focus of traditional geo-conservation towards seeing geodiversity in its living context (Stace & Larwood, ibid). The LGAP process is now gathering momentum across Britain. At present, 27 LGAPs have been launched or are in development, covering areas such as counties and AONBs, and at least three mineral aggregate companies are preparing GAPs of their own. A National GAP is currently at drafting stage, to provide a national framework for geodiversity conservation.
Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 43 (2007)