As we went to press for Winter 2012 Defra announced the 12 areas that were successful in the bidding to become Nature Improvement Areas. These will have a significant impact on many organisations over the next few years and with the funding arrangements now agreed projects are starting to evolve from ideas on paper through to on the ground actions.
If you want to keep up to date with all the activity across England all the details can be found on the Natural England website:
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/biodiversity/funding/nia/latestnews.aspx
If you are not familiar with the NIA concept, an example of what they are looking to achieve can be seen through the Vision statement for the Birmingham and the Black Country NIA (the only urban one).
Their vision is:
“To achieve long-term environmental gains for the wildlife and people of Birmingham & the Black Country by delivering targeted, on-the-ground, biodiversity projects at a landscape scale.”
Our ambition, for
Bigger – increasing the amount of semi-natural habitat in the landscape
Better – improving the management of sites and achieve greater biodiversity
More – creating new habitat, especially where this improves connectivity
Joined – prioritising corridors and stepping stone sites in less diverse areas
With more people – engaging in raising awareness, understanding and appreciation
To scale up from site by site action to a co-ordinated programme, ultimately to achieve NIA-wide action.
For more details about the NIA schemes in general please contact:
nature [dot] improvementareas [at] naturalengland [dot] org [dot] uk
For further information about the Birmingham and Black Country NIA contact Simon Atkinson; simon [dot] a [at] bbcwildlife [dot] org [dot] uk
www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/nia