Minerals website wins top award
THE Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ ‘www.afterminerals.com’ website – an online guide which aims to increase the number of minerals sites restored to wildlife habitat after-use – has scooped the prestigious Royal Town Planning Institute’s award for e-government.
By using the website’s detailed GIS maps, which are backed up by expert advice on habitat creation and management from the Nature After Minerals programme, run in partnership by the RSPB and Natural England, with support from the Quarry Products Association, quarry operators can see exactly what kinds of habitat their sites could support.
The competition judges were particularly impressed by the partnership approach of the project and described the website as a highly practical tool, which had been developed in a comprehensive, imaginative and professional way.
Darren Moorcroft, head of conservation management advice for the RSPB, said: ‘Looking ahead, we would like to expand the website to look at areas where minerals sites are likely to be sited in the future. That way, nature could be built into their end use right from the very first planning application.’
Research by the RSPB has shown that transforming sites once extraction has finished could create thousands of hectares of woodland, heathland, meadows and reed beds, making a huge contribution towards government targets for restoring lost and threatened habitats.
