Surrey Biodiversity Partnership

Surrey Biodiversity Partnership

Welcome to the Surrey Biodiversity Partnership Website.

• For contact details please see the Partners pages

Frosted Rosehip © Sue Webber

Surrey Biodiversity Partnership Position Statements

This recently published series states the position of the Surrey Biodiversity Partnership on a range of topics. Members are welcome to use these statements to support their nature conservation work, to inform partners and the public.

• Climate Change
• Conservation Grazing
• Coppicing
• Dogs and Nature Conservation
• Duck feeding and the health of water bodies
• Invasive Non-Native Species, full statement and Invasive species, summary

Woodland Management training and discussion event

Addressing the decline in Woodland Birds and mammals 17.10.11

An event organised by the partnership, hosted by National Trust Bookham Common, lead by RSPB, with woodland mammal advice from Surrey Wildlife Trust, Invertebrate advice from Butterfly Conservation and the LNHS Bookham Survey.

Surrey Biodiversity Partnership Conference 28.09.11

Delivering Green Infrastructure

Visionary restoration projects and innovative schemes in Surrey were used tto illustrate how Green Infrastructure can be creatively delivered. Our aim was to enable Districts and Boroughs to meet their GI requirements productively. The day explored the various tools and support on offer to help deliver Green Infrastructure effectively whilst meeting the new responsibilities outlined in the White Paper on the Natural Environment.

Venue

Kindly donated by IBM UK ltd. IBM's river-side conference centre at Lotus Business Park, Staines, TW18 3AG:

Celebrate International Day of Biodiversity with a partnership event

Family Fun Day Saturday 19th May 2012

A free event for all ages celebrating local wildlife was held in Hythe Park

Photos of this years event are on show here

In May 2011 we had the following:

• Pond Dipping with Surrey Greenspaces Project Officer Frances Halstead.
• Touch a slow worm and learn more about these fascinating animals plus the frogs and toads that live here - with Surrey Reptiles and Amphibians Group SARG specialist Jamel Guenioui.
• What local apple varieties are the Friend's of Hythe Park hoping to plant? Find out more about the plans for a Community Orchard in the park. Become a volunteer orchard surveyor contact Anita Burroughs at PTES to help survey Surrey's heritage of traditional orchards
• Learn about our very special native pollinating bees. What flowers are good to plant in your garden? Join Surrey Biological Record Centre's bee specialist Catherine Burton - come and play the bee game.

A small native pollinating bee, on Dandelion flower. photo © Sue Webber

• Poetry Tree; * Teddy Bears ride to the canopy; * face painting; * balloon modelling; * map trail; * nature trail...

Enjoy the park and its wonderful wildlife.

Bring your friends and family, a picnic and your teddy bears in fancy dress. Any age human can enter their teddy bear into one of the following categories:

• Explorers and Scientists
• Myths and Fairy Tales
• TV and films

Special thanks to Cafe Momo for supporting this event Cafe Momo

NB please note there will be no formal supervision of your child by staff of any of the groups running the event. Children under 8 must be accompanied by someone aged 13 or over. No bookings required.

Biodiversity Day for Surrey Conservation Volunteer Groups

click here for conference resources

A popular and successful event held in November last year. Thank you for all the positive comments. We intend to run another similar event this year - so let us know what your conservation group is doing and what areas of conservation you would like to learn more about.

Aims of the day:

• To support and encourage volunteer groups involved in nature conservation
• To meet some of the nature conservation practitioners from around the county
• To increase groups' understanding of habitat and species needs - share best practice
• To decrease isolation of groups and provide a network for support of both groups and Surrey Biodiversity Partnership members.
• To offer advice on forming and maintaining groups
• To provide poster displays; presentations; discussion groups.

• Anita Burroughs from People's Trust for Endangered Species who will tell us about the orchard project and how volunteers are needed to survey orchards in Surrey. Contact Sue Webber or Anita at PTES to register to help survey Surrey orchards - we will hold a training day for registered helpers in late October/early Nov.
• James Adler updating us on the Surrey Wildlife Trust Grazing Project, come and find out how volunteers are helping.

Invasive Alien Plants Day

A seminar for partnership members was held in May 2010 in Guildford. Members of CABI talked to us about a range of Invasive Alien plants. The day included a walk along the Wey to look at local IAs and interesting discussions on control methods. The event received a lot of positive feedback and people felt reassured regarding the work done and the safety of the psyllid being being trialled as a biological control in Spring and due to be released in July 2010 to contend with Japanese Knotweed.

• CABI
• BBC news
• What is a psyllid

Will the psyllid destroy all the Japanese knotweed in Great Britain?

No. The psyllid will put natural pressure on it if the psyllid establishes successfully in Great Britain. It won’t make japanese knotweed disappear altogether,it would not be in the psyllid's interests to remove its only food supply. The ultimate aim of this project is to turn the weed from a destructive and expensive environmental burden, into a small manageable plant which does not pose a threat to economic interests and biodiversity. The advantage of successful bio-control would be that the knotweed should not spread fast nor establish well, however we might not see spectacular results for many years.

Can I sit back and wait or should I continue to try to control knotweed?

Anyone with knotweed on their land should take advice on the best control measures with reference to the Environment Agency's Code of Practice and Welsh Assembly Government's Technical Advice. Continue to implement control measures as appropriate. Any delay will only allow the plant to establish more rhizomes (root systems) making it harder to control, whichever method is applied. It is likely that, with time, people will want to integrate their control measures with the psyllid to get the best benefit for the least effort/cost.

There is still a risk of spread of Japanese knotweed through bad management which could be harmful to the environment.

The above questions and answers are from the CABI website

We aim to hold another event to look at Invasive Alien plants concentrating on Crassula helmsii

Website or BARS Reporting supported sessions for partnership members:

Want to share your project successes or to work on a shared revision document? Training days for partnership members to learn how to use the website to communicate publicly, or privately within a working group, can be arranged.

BARS (Biodiversity Action Reporting System) training and supported days can be arranged to suit partners to assist them in reporting on their projects.

Thank you to Natural England for funding the creation of this site. Thank you to Adam Hattrell and Krome Design for design, technical and artistic respectively.