Countryside near the village of Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire where a planning application by Third Energy to frack was recently approved. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Many claim to tire of hearing about climate change, species extinction, threats from fracking and other environmental issues of great importance. Thanks to the Guardian for continuing to pay attention:
Majority of potential UK fracking sites are rich in important wildlife
Almost two-thirds of proposed areas have higher biodiversity, valuable for functions such as pollination and pest control, analysis shows
Many of the areas that have been recently marked as potential sites for fracking are rich in wildlife that perform crucial functions from pollination to decomposition, researchers have found.
Scientists say that almost two-thirds of the areas that have been labelled as suitable for shale gas extraction have levels of biodiversity equal to or above the national average, according to a new analysis of records collected from across the country.
“A lot of the areas that have opened up to shale gas licensing actually harbour much higher than average levels of biodiversity,” said Tom Oliver, of University of Reading who is a senior author of the study in the Journal of Applied Ecology. “We only have one natural heritage and we have to protect it and so using these data to highlight those very valuable sites and to facilitate their protection is hopefully a useful thing to do.”
The study, which analysed previously collected records of more than 5,500 species, including those of birds, plants and butterflies, found that 65.3% of proposed areas that have been designated suitable for fracking have levels of biodiversity equal to or above the national average, including parts of Lancashire and South Wales.
After dividing Britain up into squares, measuring 10km by 10km, the records, which were made by volunteers between 1970 and 2013, were assessed, taking into account the climate and geology of the area, as well as variations in the thoroughness of the recordings, thereby allowing different locations to be given a rating for their biodiversity, and compared to each other. The results are available to explore in an interactive digital map.
The scientists say the approach offers a new, fine-grained approach to looking at biodiversity across Britain. That, adds Oliver, will help, “to inform the location of large infrastructure projects or ecological restoration work”.
The study also looked at how biodiversity had changed over time, focussing on changes between two time periods, 1970-1990 and 2000-2013. While in many areas the decline in the presence of protected species mirrored that of biodiversity more widely, in others that was not the case.
“That wider biodiversity is still really important for a whole range of functions – pollination and pest control and decomposition – and also just the species that people really value seeing in the environment,” said Oliver. “[Priority species] are often used as indicators in these environmental assessments and we’re showing that actually our new method allows us to incorporate a whole suite of other species, thousands of more common species, which are just as important really.”…
Read the whole article here.
