Embedding biodiversity – the role of our biodiversity ecologist

We aim to improve the biodiversity of our operational sites and land, particularly in the locations that are recognised as being important for wildlife.

Our sustainability vision includes a commitment to a biodiversity-rich landholding which is reflected in our Biodiversity Action Plan and its key theme on site management.

We now have a biodiversity ecologist tasked with making this vision a reality, by managing our sites and landholding for biodiversity.

This is a challenging task as our SSSI landholding is split over a number of different sites, often less than 10ha in size. However, this work is already producing good results.

The introduction of our habitat appraisal protocol has helped us quickly understand the biodiversity potential of any of our sites and 45 of 70 sites surveyed in 2008 yielded good or great potential for biodiversity.

We are now moving forward with new or revised management plans for these sites which can be improved or enhanced. Our ecologist is working with our operational managers to make the best of the biodiversity on their sites.