We are not the only nature reserve struggling with increased visitor numbers. Here, David Attenborough presents a twenty minute documentary about Richmond Park, showing us a biodiversity not dissimilar to Southwick Country Park’s own, and wrestling with very similar difficulties.
Please comment below. The problems of sharing our few public green spaces with our threatened wildlife in a damaged biosphere grow as our population grows, and we all need to find solutions.
Re-wilding projects, as a method of restoring Britain’s depleted biodiversity, are gaining support.
This is a six spot burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae), a dayflying nectar feeder, photographed on the reserve’s plentiful, nectar-rich, tufted vetch.
Continue reading
Water voles are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Are we doing enough to ensure the protection of the reserve’s water voles?
Continue reading
According the the Countryside Charity CPRE, light pollution is falling, dropping sharply during the pandemic lockdowns and continuing to fall as the cost of electricity soars. This is good news!
Continue reading “Light pollution”
A lot of people buy artificial Christmas trees in the belief that it benefits the environment, but environmentalists and energy analysts disagree. We need only look at a single element of the hundreds of thousands of artificial trees that will be put up and decorated this Christmas: they are all made of plastic.
Continue reading “Real or fake?”
On 1st September 2020, the EU’s ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides came into effect but investigators have found that eight EU countries and the UK have since exported neonicotinoids to other nations with weaker environmental regulations. These are unacceptable double standards: the companies that produce these dangerous chemicals are prioritising their profits at the expense of our environment.
Continue reading “The return of neonicotinoids”
A study by scientists from the RSPB, BirdLife International and the Czech Society for Ornithology has found that there are 247million fewer house sparrows in Europe than there were in 1980. This is a loss of almost half the house sparrow’s European population.
Continue reading “House sparrow”
Cop 26 does not appear to have reached an agreement that will limit global heating to 1.5°C. The really frightening thing is that we all know what has to be done but the people who make the decisions are not listening to us.
Here is Sir David Attenborough on the simple matter of saving our planet:
Wikipedia defines bioturbation as the reworking of soils and sediments by animals or plants. Here is a video of a system with and without soil fauna such as earthworms, mites and isopods over a 15 week period: this is what is happening to the fallen leaves all over the reserve.
There are thousands of species of invertebrates that overwinter in the leaf litter below our gardens’ trees and shrubs.
Continue reading “Let the leaves lie”
Challenges such as climate change, habitat destruction and invasive species are pushing our native ecosystems to the edge, making urban and suburban spaces into critical resources. There are 22 million private gardens in the UK, an astonishing potential that, used carefully, might just make the difference between success and failure for the Nature Recovery Networks proposed by the new Environment Bill.
Continue reading “Eco-gardening”
At the beginning of the year the UK Treasury commissioned and published for the very first time a full assessment of the economic importance of nature. Professor Dasgupta, the Cambridge University economist who carried out the assessment, concluded that our prosperity has come at “devastating cost” to the ecosystems that support us. “Nature is our home,” he said, “good economics demands we manage it better.”
Continue reading ““Nature is our home””
“It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for – the whole thing – rather than just one or two stars.” David Attenborough
Our park doesn’t have snow leopards or white rhinos. Our rarities are small and fragile: water voles, pondweeds, dragonflies zipping past so suddenly they make you jump, a visiting marsh tit, a linnet singing in the trees, little bottom-feeding fish. Then there are the hundreds of flowering plants, thousands of invertebrates and probably tens of thousands of species of fungi hidden away where we can’t see them.
Continue reading “The whole thing”
Usually we would welcome predators into the reserve; they are a sign of a healthy ecosystem. We have resident stoats and weasels, foxes and badgers and are happy to know that our ecosystem can support them. Domestic cats, like this one photographed early in the morning in the woods in Village Green, are a very different proposition.
Continue reading “Cats”
Almost exactly a year ago, the hedgehog was included in the Mammal Society’s Red List For British Mammals, listed as Vulnerable to Extinction.
Continue reading “Hedgehog Heroes”
Last year, Prime Minister Johnson, standing behind a banner that read BUILD BUILD BUILD, condemned all our efforts to protect the biodiversity of the Lambrok corridor as newt-counting. This was just the first move in what is beginning to look like a long-term campaign to benefit developers at the cost of our rapidly deteriorating environment. The latest move, hidden in the shadows of an obscure website, proposes restricting the reach of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
Continue reading “Calling all newt-counters”
This is a six spot burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae), a dayflying nectar feeder. Regular volunteer, Clive Knight photographed it yesterday on the reserve’s plentiful, nectar-rich, tufted vetch.
Continue reading
Half of the world’s annual 381 million tonnes of plastic waste is single-use. Join Plastic Free July, a global movement that is challenging hundreds of millions of people to find their own solutions to plastic pollution.
Continue reading “Plastic Free July”
Sign Up with the Wildlife Trusts to do at least one wild thing every day throughout the whole month of June.
Let’s focus on the environment this summer; let’s learn a little, make a contribution of some kind. Here are some ideas.
Continue reading “Things to do”
A meta-analysis of nearly 400 research studies has shown that pesticides are damaging the soil’s vitally important ecosystems. Researchers have warned that we must be more careful about considering the organisms that live in the soil when we assess the environmental impact of pesticides. A UN report published in December 2020 found that, without urgent action to halt degradation, the future of our soils looks bleak: it takes thousands of years for new soils to form.
Continue reading
You will know that the Park has an orchard that was planted a few years ago. Some of you might have helped to plant it. It was created as a Community Garden and to maintain expertise we keep in contact with the Orchard Project, a national organisation for such orchard managers. This article is from their latest newsletter, which I feel will interest many park users.
Continue reading
This is Pat, our champion litter picker; yesterday was her 91st birthday.
Continue reading “Happy Birthday Pat”
Today we are publishing the introduction and section 1 of our objection to planning application 20/00379/OUT to build 180 houses in the meadows at Southwick Court, between Trowbridge and Southwick Village. It is both a summary of the park’s biodiversity and a reminder that we need to protect our green spaces and wildlife whenever and however we can.
Continue reading
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 