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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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January marked the beginning of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The science says that these next ten years are humanity’s last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change, to prevent the destruction of the complex ecosystems we all depend on.
Continue reading “Ecosystem restoration”
Three days ago, the government delayed the Environment Bill for the third time. Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said:
Time and time again the government tells us that ‘urgent action’ is needed to restore nature, that it will ‘build back greener’ and that we can’t afford to ‘dither and delay’. What then is it playing at by delaying the most important piece of environmental legislation for decades?
We don’t need to look any further than this week’s New Scientist to see the urgent need for legislation to protect our environment and the many lifeforms we share it with.
Continue reading “Environment Bill delayed”
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?”
Here’s a terrifying fact culled from Scientific American this week: human-made stuff now outweighs all the Earth’s biomass. This is a new and significant milestone in humanity’s dominance of the planet.
Continue reading “Anthropocene”
Last year the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published a report called Wild Bird Populations in the UK, 1970 to 2018. We published this post at the time but feel it bears repeating: the coronavirus crisis may be at the top of our list of concerns but the environmental crisis has not gone away.
Continue reading “Bird populations in crisis”
An important message from Sir David Attenborough.
Header picture by DKG
This is a water flea (Daphnia magna), not even a distant cousin to the fleas on your dog, but very close to the bottom of the freshwater food chain that is being disrupted by your dog’s flea treatment.
Continue reading “Flea circus part 2”
Research has recently found that the highly toxic insecticides used on cats and dogs to kill fleas are poisoning England’s rivers. Scientists believe that significant environmental damage is being done to important water insect populations, down at the bottom of the freshwater food chain.
Continue reading “Flea circus”
At the end of 2020, the protection afforded to the UK’s wildlife by the UK Post 2010 Biodiversity Framework will end. The Environment Bill 2020 does not make clear exactly what will replace it.
Continue reading “Protecting the park”
