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Across Dorset over 400 land and freshwater species recorded in the past are now extinct, about 1 in 40 species. These include the pearl bordered fritillary butterfly, shrill carder bee and chough. Some 2,500 more species are still here (about 15% of the total) but are threatened, rare, scarce or protected, including over half the bee species and 42% of butterflies.
Decline to development, pollution, persecution and climate change, but by far the largest impact is land use change. Between 1930 and 1980 and in line with government policy that favoured food production over wildlife, there was a stark loss of nature-rich grassland in favour of improved grasslands and arable crops. Urban areas and coniferous woodlands also increased, heathlands were destroyed and fragmented, hedges lost and river corridors narrowed. 15 priority marine habitats in Dorset, including rocky reefs with sponges and sea fans, seagrass beds and the subtotal and intertidal muds of our harbours. Around 157 species of conservation concern are known to occur. 30 by 30 target It is estimated nature if thriving or recovering on only 6.4% of Dorset’s land area. 22% of land does have some form of recognition or protection for wildlife or is within areas with high local wildlife value, although not all of this is managed for nature. So, if encourage landowners to adopt nature friendly management of that land and extend it to another 8% of land, we could reach the 30% target. At sea 24% marine area is protected with few areas actively managed for nature. Ref: Natural Value Report 2022 - Dorset Local Nature Partnership Dorset Environmental Records Centre
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 Teach the future is a youth-led campaign to urgently repurpose the entire education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis
Students need to be taught about the climate emergency and ecological crisis: how they are caused, what we can do to mitigate them and what our future lives and jobs are going to look like due to them. Sustainability and these crises need to become key content in all subject areas. Educators need to be trained in how to teach about these difficult topics in a way that empowers students, and they need funding and resources to do this. Dorset educators are encouraged to sign up to learn how they help young and old become climate ready citizens. (Image courtesy of: Torin Menzies, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons) Responsible (https://www.wearepossible.org/latest-news/ltns)
We’ve just conducted the biggest ever study of LTNs, looking at over 40 schemes, and the results are clear. Low traffic neighbourhoods reduce traffic on residential streets by nearly half. That means our communities are quieter, safer, and nicer places to live. We have worked with the University of Westminster’s Active Travel Academy to publish the most comprehensive study of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) ever, showing that streets within LTNs experience substantial, overall falls in traffic and, implying significant changes in street use. This report shows that most streets within low traffic neighbourhoods see reductions in traffic, improving the experience of walking and cycling. Two-thirds of these neighbourhoods now have vehicle flows below 1000 vehicles a day, compared to only two-fifths before. Across London the average traffic reduction within LTNs was 46.9%. Little impact on boundary roadsWhat’s more, there is little indication of this traffic being simply displaced onto boundary roads. Average motor traffic counts showed that on boundary roads, traffic changed relatively little - with a less than 1% increase on the mean average of 11,000 vehicles that pass through boundary roads on a typical day. Average decreases in motor traffic on roads within LTNs are almost ten times higher than average increases in motor traffic on boundary roads. This suggests that not only do LTNs have substantial benefits inside their boundaries by creating an overall reduction in traffic, but they can also contribute to wider traffic reduction goals. Our study shows that LTNs mean more people can get around by walking, wheeling, cycling and scooting, and fewer motorists are using minor roads as a cheeky shortcut. But there’s more. Our study blows concerns about congestion on surrounding roads out of the water. The average increase in traffic on the surrounding roads is just one percent. That's an extra 82 cars per day on roads which usually carry 11,000 cars. This means LTNs don’t just cut traffic in the local community, they cut traffic full stop. The 3 year study began at the fishery this week, with the restocking of 200 2-year-old barbel.
Anglers at the historic Throop fishery near Hurn, Bournemouth, had reported a decline in barbel catches and the Angling Association approached the Environment Agency for help in finding the cause of the fall in numbers. Significant habitat improvements have been made at the fishery over previous years to improve spawning areas and juvenile and adult habitat after dredging in the 1970s. The juvenile barbel, reared at the Environment Agency’s National Coarse Fish Farm in Calverton, near Nottingham, have been tagged with passive electronic tags, similar to those used to chip dogs and cats. These chips are individual to the fish and will hopefully last for the entire lifetime of the fish. Environment Agency Fisheries Officer Jim Allan, said: Using pit tags in this way gives us a great opportunity to monitor the barbel movements over a number of years, and give input back to the club. Anglers can scan the fish they catch and track their movement. The data will provide valuable information on the validity of stocking and longer term information on growth rates and survival. In summer 2022, Defra announced the 22 projects chosen for the first round of Landscape Recovery.
Landscape Recovery supports landowners and managers to take a large-scale, long-term approach to producing environmental and climate goods on their land. The 22 projects represent hundreds of farmers and landowners working together. They will be awarded a share of around £12 million in development grants over the next 2 years to help them finalise their delivery plans to restore rivers, boost biodiversity and much more. The Wareham Arc project is a partnership of 25 farmers, estates, businesses, conservation charities and private individuals covering around 3,800 hectares of land from Wild Woodbury in the northwest to Poole Harbour in the southeast. The partners will decide on what interventions and changes will be implemented in the next 2 years with the broad aims of connecting habitats, de-intensifying land use and restoring rivers across the catchment to improve water quality flowing into Poole Harbour. |
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