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Practical actions, on the ground

Mineral companies should aim to maintain and increase the biodiversity throughout their land holdings. This includes land which will never be worked, land yet to be worked, land being worked, and restored land.

The foundation for a strategy to achieve this is thorough information on the current biodiversity status of all land under the company’s control, and of adjacent land. Companies should programme carrying out of an environmental audit of their land, and incorporating a baseline study and a review of the management of all land for biodiversity purposes.

This should be followed by planned implementation of improved methods of land management, together with arrangements for monitoring and review. The kinds of work involved are likely to vary according to the stage land has reached in the company’s phased operations.

Unworked land

Companies will wish to ensure that their land is being managed in line with Local BAP targets and other good conservation practice. Companies will then know how best to work an area of land from a biodiversity point of view, and which areas should be left unworked.

Methods should be examined critically with regard to, for example:

• hedgerow and copse management
• field boundary management
• the use of herbicides and pesticides
• the treatment of land set aside
• arrangements for tree planting and woodland management
• consideration of how other matters such as landscape enhancement fit into biodiversity enhancement.

Good and reliable practice of this kind can be expected to improve substantially the reputation, expertise and credibility of individual companies. It can be expected to assist the company in discussions with the mineral planning authority, as well as in developing skills which are applicable to other phases of mineral operations.

Planning for extraction

Detailed work will be required to avoid jeopardising any areas of land which should be protected because of their biodiversity interest. The Local BAP may help decide which areas should or should not be targeted for working. Opportunities should be found to conserve and preferably augment the biodiversity interest of land outside the working area. Environmental assessment and consultation with partner organisations will be essential in this phase, as might ecological audits. Data gathered during ecological survey could be fed into local biological records centres and thus form part of the wider dataset on the national biodiversity resource.

The National Biodiversity Network, co-ordinated by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, will increasingly become a pathway to improved decision making regarding the importance of individual sites. However, it should be noted that environmental assessment should not be used as a means to mitigate a proposal. Rather, it should be a true test of whether or not a site is environmentally acceptable, and where a number of alternative sites are possible, decisions should normally be taken after such assessments.

If a valuable site cannot be avoided, mitigation should then be considered. Storing of topsoils and seed banks may help in mitigation through restoration. Provision of alternative sites might also be considered. Methods such as translocation may be possible to secure the future of valued habitats, but these are regarded as unproven by most nature conservation experts and authorities and are likely to be controversial. They should therefore be considered only as a last resort, and should also be under the close supervision of experts in the field. Translocation is not 100 per cent reliable, and the consequences of failure could be dramatic.

During working

The working phase can create interim habitats which are valuable for specific kinds of wildlife, such as sand martin nesting in sand faces (as in Case Example 14), and nesting lapwing and skylark. Opportunities tend to be unexpected in this phase, so companies should try to be aware of what might happen. For example, lagoon conditions prior to restoration might be used by waders, whilst silt lagoons in varying stages of drying out may be attractive to sand bees.

There is much scope during working for sustaining the links between the nature of the areas surrounding the quarry, particularly through phased restoration. Natural re-colonisation of worked areas can provide excellent interim habitats. These areas can also provide templates for the type of habitat which might be most suitable and/or valuable in after-use plans. Mineral companies should allow for flexibility, so that biodiversity interest can be retained by the timing or limited re-phasing of operations. Adaptability should be built into the company environmental management system. This same flexibility will also need to be shown by other players, in particular planners and statutory bodies.

After working

Selecting nature conservation as the main after-use of a site, or considering it as part of a wider after-use scheme, provides the opportunity to extend or re-create previous habitats or to create completely new ones.

The selection of restoration type and method should be strongly guided by the Local BAP and the Natural Area profile, and can be expected to require considerable discussion and consultation. This will help the restored site fit into the wider pattern of wildlife in the vicinity (and into the landscape in design terms). There will often be merit in co-operative working with other parties which might have an interest in the long term management of the land for wildlife. Careful management will be required, as the landscape and its amenity value changes following restoration. As many valuable habitats are seral (subclimax), they will require careful management to keep them in the preferred state and this should be considered in the management plan.

Relationship with neighbouring land

Mineral extraction can have severe effects on habitats outside the boundary of the consented extraction area, and even beyond the land ownership boundary. This should be taken into account throughout the mineral working cycle whenever consideration is given to how land under the mineral company’s control is to be managed.

Equally, adjacent land may present mineral companies with opportunities to enhance biodiversity by extending interesting neighbouring habitats onto their own land, and by liaising with landowners to produce a biodiversity strategy for the whole area.