Durham Wildlife Trust has embarked on a one-year pilot project to see how wildlife and its habitats can have a beneficial effect on people’s lives. The EcoServ project will examine benefits to the local economy and people’s health and well-being. Once completed, the intention is to help other Wildlife Trusts to carry out similar studies across the UK.
The project will use a Geographic Information System (GIS) to plot such sites, with an emphasis placed on locations where members of the public can enjoy nature, including sites that provide beautiful views and areas where people can carry out recreational activities, such as hiking and wildlife watching.
The Trust itself runs 26 nature reserves which are visited by thousands of people each year and Project Officer Chloe Bellamy said: “Our experience as a Trust is that accessible countryside and nature reserves provide opportunities for exploration and learning about the natural environment. To help us value and protect these areas, we first need to understand how different sites combine together to deliver these services to us.
“An example of the study is the role of urban parks. They can help regulate city air temperatures and reduce the likelihood of local flooding, as well as creating spaces for people to relax, play and encounter wildlife.
“The end result will be a series of maps illustrating how these services are distributed across the landscape and highlighting sites or areas which should be of conservation concern. These maps will be easy to interpret, providing us with useful visual aids for increasing public awareness of the wider value of nature. They will also be detailed enough to inform local planning and policy decisions, such as highlighting the importance of local wildlife sites or areas of green belt.
“A GIS tool will be developed which will allow the maps to be easily updated and run by other Wildlife Trusts across the country, allowing each Trust to generate their own maps.”
Trust director Jim Cokill said: “Sometimes it can be easy to forget the importance of wildlife to people’s lives. Seeing birds in flight or otters on rivers or badgers at dusk are some of the wonderful experiences in life and this project will underline that point. The information we gather will also give us extra information to help us act as an advocate for wildlife when large development proposals are planned.”
