Therefore, if District and Regional planners are to utilise Biodiversity Hotspot information
it is important that EWT works with knowledgeable local wildlife recorders and
organizations. EWT is already collaborating with Peter Harvey and Del Smith in the
Essex Field Club and Essex Amphibian and Reptile Group to highlight key Wildlife
Sites in Essex, and the Trust wishes to develop this approach further. In particular, we
would like to ask those who collect species records, whether they would be willing to
share summaiy data (e.g. species-richness) to help us ensure key sites, identified through
biological recording, arc protected in the new planning system.
*County Wildlife. Sites are non-statutory sites recognised for their substantive local
nature conservation value, they have no legal protection, but are a material considera-
tion in Regional and Local Plans, and when planning applications are determined.
They are. brown by many names such as: SNCI 's, SINC s, WHS and Local Wildlife Sites.
Essex Field Club maps of invertebrate biodiversity hotspots - can
we add to these?
1Peter Harvey and 2Del Smith 1 32 Lodge Lane, Grays, Essex RM16 2YP
grays@peterharvey.freeserve.co.uk; 2 12 Tring Gardens, Harold Hill, Romford RM3
9EP delsmith444@btinternet.com
As indicated in the previous article, the Essex Field Club is working with the Essex
Wildlife Trust to establish a collaborative approach that ensures the Local Development
Framework documents and maps currently being prepared by Essex local authorities
include as much biological information as possible. This is essential to ensure the selection
of County Wildlife Sites and Green Corridors reflect what we consider to be the most
valuable wildlife sites, and to enable us to influence planning at an early enough stage to
make a real difference.
We need to be able to supply as much information as possible in a format that can be
used to achieve these aims (i.e. in computerised database form). If you can help, please
contact the EFC Council and Luke Bristowe at the Wildlife Trust. We are also keen to
enable paper data to be computerised in a thoroughly validated way, and again, if you
are interested, we will try and explore funding bids with other interested parties to help
these developments happen.
Using county data in MapMate, the biological recording and mapping software that is
being encouraged by both the Club and the Trust, it is possible to produce maps showing
levels of biodiversity in Essex, and we have provisionally done this with the County
Recorder data for Arachnida, aculeate Hymenoptera and Diptera as well as other data
resulting from our own fieldwork. Maps can be produced that summarise the data in
10
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 49, January 2006