New Minerals Frameworks can help wildlife
HOW best to use the new Mineral Development Frameworks to create more high-quality wildlife habitat was the focus of a recent series of successful England-wide workshops.
Organized by the Nature After Minerals Programme – a partnership between the RSPB and Natural England, the events brought together the minerals industry, planners and conservationists in an effort to influence the new frameworks currently being drawn up by planning authorities around England.
The frameworks are strategic planning documents that set out how and where mineral extraction will take place within a local authority’s area over a 10–15-year period. They also require a site’s end use to be taken into account, offering an opportunity to include wildlife habitat in that thinking.
Jonathan Clarke of Natural England, said: ‘Strategic mineral planning is key to identifying the opportunities for creating high-quality wildlife habitats in the right locations. The new frameworks offer an exciting opportunity to focus efforts in a joined up way and we wanted to influence the process while they were evolving.’
In total, more than 350 people attended the nine workshops and their collected thoughts and ideas have been summarized and placed online at www.afterminerals.com, together with examples of how key mineral planning authorities have approached the issue.
Nature After Minerals programme manager Alice Davies said: ‘This should provide an easily accessible pool of information. Rather than produce a hard copy, we used the website as the best medium to keep the information up to date and reflect the dynamic nature of the minerals planning process.’
Over the coming months the programme will build on the success of the workshops, bringing together operators, planners and conservationists to talk about how to focus effort.
‘We need to look at where extraction is happening, identify those areas with the potential for different wildlife habitats and then, rather than creating generic sites, we can focus action for conservation in the right places,’ said Ms Davies.
