• Main

• Ecology
• Wildlife

• BAPs

• Endangered Species
• Rainforest

Advice

Biodiversity is basically all the natural processes that sustain life. Its happens all around us, all day, all night, continuously without a break. The microbes in the soil, the insects, nutrient cycles, plants, wildlife, etc, etc.

The more biodiversity we kill off through development and environmental damage, the more difficult it is for our ecosystem to adjust and the less resource it will provide for us e.g. clean water, food, etc.

Biodiversity needs to be improved in two ways including quantity and quality. This could be that more areas are transformed into planted areas, ponds, forests, etc, and those areas also need to be enriched with plant species that are natural to the local area.

For those that are lucky enough to have a backyard or garden you can improve the biodiversity around you by considering the following basic advice:

 

Plant native shrubs and trees

Local wildlife and insect-life has adapted to native plant species over time and don’t so easily live with ‘foreign’ plants, shrubs and trees.

 

Overgrow a small part of your garden

An overgrown part of your garden, including some small logs, provides a habitat for lots insects and local wildlife.

 

Create your compost

This has a positive effect in three ways:

• Fertilisers with peat are not required

• Becomes a home for loads of different species of insects

• Kitchen and garden waste doesn’t become damaging methane in a landfill

 

Consider using a water butt

Water butts collect rainwater which has the following benefits:

• better for plants and your garden

• reduces your need for mains water

• small part of the solution for reducing flooding

 

 

There are three great resources to help you with improving the biodiversity in your back garden, including:

English Nature website - www.english-nature.org.uk/Nature_In_The_Garden

This website lists more basic ideas on how to improve the biodiversity in your garden as well as some downloadable pdf files foe more detailed advice.

BBC website - www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildbritain/gardenwildlife/myspace

This website is an amazing piece of work, as it is tailored for the various dwellings we all live in, and the amount of time we can spend in the garden. Well worth a look.

The Natural History Museum - www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/postcode-plants

The Natural History Mueum has a huge database, which is free to use, which lists a wide range of plants (flora). This can be used to select which native trees/ shubs and plants you want to place in your garden.