Home > Implementing the UK BAP > Assement

Assessing the contributions of minerals industries to biodiversity

The emphasis for any action on biodiversity is on the provision of improvements to biodiversity compared with the perpetuation of the status quo. This can include:

• stopping any damage to ecological interests, such as calling a halt to mineral working within a scarce habitat;
• creating worthwhile new habitats where none existed before, particularly through restoration;
• enhancing existing habitats, perhaps on unworked land in the company’s ownership.

However, in respect of mineral working, improvement on the pre-existing biodiversity interest is not be the only relevant criterion in making plans for nature conservation after-use. If it were, preference would then invariably be given to mineral working on land of no existing value (eg, under intensive agriculture, or on other existing habitats of little biodiversity merit), due to the scope for working and restoration to introduce more diverse habitats. Wider biodiversity efforts in these areas would probably wish to focus on enhancing what exists (eg, through improving the biodiversity of agricultural ‘desert’). While restoration to nature conservation on such land should not be precluded in any way, there are many less obvious cases where a nature conservation after-use might contribute more to local biodiversity.

Optimum biodiversity interest

Consideration should be given to seeking the optimum biodiversity interest. For example, options for restoration of a mineral working might contribute either to reedbed creation or to cereal field margins, and a choice would have to be made on which offered the greater benefits. Similarly, there may be potential to implement interim measures to assist biodiversity, perhaps in the treatment of the working area or of topsoil and overburden mounds, even though these are not long-term arrangements.

Furthermore, there is a key moderating influence in the selection of improvements to biodiversity which mineral working should aim to effect, namely that the improvements should enhance the special biogeographical characteristics of their local vicinity. This is the theme of the Natural Areas approach. It emphasises the need for joint effort in a geographical area to achieve substantial biodiversity benefits.

It should be noted that contributions to biodiversity must always be measured against a baseline of the biodiversity interest with no mineral development present. Caution should therefore be exercised by companies identifying ‘benefit’ in cases such as those where a diverse habitat is restored to what it was before mineral working, or where a habitat is trans-located to another site without net damage. Such cases may well demonstrate valuable skills in avoiding long-term damage to nature conservation without adding to biodiversity. More beneficial use of such skills might include sites where a diverse habitat after mineral working replaces a degraded habitat, or where scarce species from an interesting adjacent habitat are helped to colonise for the first time a site recently worked for minerals.

A practical approach to conservation

As national and local BAPs are only now becoming available, it is too early to expect minerals companies or other industries to have made substantial strides towards achieving biodiversity targets or adopting a strategic approach to nature conservation at the site level. Some of our examples illustrate progress made to date with involvement in Local BAPs, for example, but we acknowledge that much more is likely to be achieved in future than can be reported now.

Indeed, it will be a measure of the success or otherwise of the UK BAP approach that local actions for nature conservation are designed explicitly to serve a strategic purpose rather than simply achieve local conservation benefits for their own sake (important though those are). Nevertheless, current activities may already be fully consistent with biodiversity objectives, as our case examples show.

Generally, though, if the concept is to add value, it must imply an additional dimension. For example, at existing sites where companies are committed to nature conservation but have not been involved in BAP work, this might generate slightly different practical actions, or perhaps a new framework for steering future actions.

Understanding the biodiversity time-frame

The long-term nature of biodiversity promotion – and indeed some mineral workings – also emphasises the importance that should be attached to monitoring. Medium- and long-term planning for biodiversity are vital at an early stage because of the commitments likely to be required and the potentially long period before investment in nature is fully repaid.

The action required will depend on the objectives, so it is important to decide how the ecological interest in a site – whether worked or unworked – will be encouraged to evolve. In particular, a balance will need to be struck between allowing natural change and stimulating specific kinds of change. A decision will be needed on the point at which to slow down the process of natural change towards a site’s climax, knowing that management will then be needed to maintain the habitat and discourage its further natural change. As evolutionary change involves losses as well as gains, there should be an early appreciation of temporary habitats and their associated species which are programmed to be supplanted as time passes.

To view a summary of the main contributions which minerals industries can make to biodiversity planning, click here.

For an overview of recommendations for industry and company participation, click here.