28 February Dear all,

Transcription

1 28 February 2013 Dear all, Each year, as part of commitment to improving biodiversity on our sites at Heathrow, we send out a review of the year letter to keep those partners whom we work with informed of news, issues and progress. We hope you find this of interest and invite you to send in any comments and opinions you may have. New Biodiversity Manager in place. In February, Adam Cheeseman took over from James Webster in the role of Biodiversity Manager, initially employed by JS Agriculture Limited, but now by Ecology and Habitat Management Ltd. Adam comes to airport having spent over 20 years working in nature conservation, with the past 13 years working in the London Borough of Hounslow on behalf of the Council as a Countryside Ranger and most recently as an Ecology Officer. Biodiversity Benchmark Award Heathrow s continued commitment to biodiversity around the airport has been recognised by The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. Once again, Heathrow retained its Biodiversity Benchmark Award status in February In October we were assessed for 2012 and just before Christmas we received notification that we had not only retained the Award for 2013, but had significantly reduced the number of Observations for improvement made by the assessor from 18 down to 8. The most significant step forward was the signing off of the new company policy document covering biodiversity. The assessor was also very complimentary in his comments about the efforts made by Heathrow in addressing various issues raised previously and in a year when the emphasis was on the Olympics. The Biodiversity Benchmark is a rigorously audited certification, which enables organisations across the UK to assess the quality of their land management, improve their contribution to the environment and demonstrate their commitment to biodiversity. See end of this letter for a table of the criteria sections and how we rate. Volunteers Volunteers from Sky supplied by the Trust for Conservation Volunteers (TCV) organisation carried out practical tasks at Mayfield Farm. In November, 26 volunteers carried out willow coppicing to open up the vegetation around the outflow and pond area. The aim being to permit more light to reach the ground thus encouraging a more flourishing ground and aquatic flora to thrive. This in turn should benefit a range of insect species, such as dragonflies, butterflies and hoverflies. Without this occasional clearance work many species would be lost by shading from the trees or being crowded out by brambles. It is to be hoped that this re-established partnership with the TCV will continue to grow and provide for more conservation tasks to be completed across our large estate of biodiversity sites. Tasks have already been identified for the coming spring/summer months, and there will undoubtedly be a wide range of tasks that will benefit from volunteers next autumn/winter. Habitat Management In addition to the work above with volunteers, pond restoration was carried out at the Causeway Nature Reserve. This involved coppicing a lot of willows and scrub clearance. The aim being to allow the ponds to retain more water, and permit the aquatic vegetation here, especially the locally rare Water-violet, to thrive and spread. At Camp 4 scrub clearance began in an area of grassland that has qualities of acid grassland about it. It is hoped that sheep will be introduced to graze, and thereby further improve, this important habitat for wildlife. Also on Camp 4, work began to restore a section of the wet willow woodland around the reservoir. Other tree species are beginning to invade and need to be removed in order to prevent loss of this nationally important woodland

2 type. The woods here are home to several protected bat species and goat moth, a regional rarity particular to this habitat. One of the features of 2012 Biodiversity Benchmark Award that impressed the assessor was the experimental strewing carried out at our Robb's Nursery site. Robb's Nursery is the former Fowle's Yard that lies on the eastern bank of the River Colne, just west of the airport, which was cleared and re-profiled in Some tree planting was done but other than this the rest of the site was bare earth prior to planned seeding. Strewing is the practise of transferring the cuttings from one area of meadow grassland in autumn to a receptor site where the cuttings can be spread around, or 'strewn'. This allows the seed present to drop onto the ground and kick start a new meadow on a new site. The cuttings for this experiment came from the Twin Diverted Rivers causeway nearby. Initial results are very encouraging with a variety of species appearing to have taken. A better picture will emerge later on this year. At the Causeway Nature Reserve the boundary fence was moved further into the site so that there could be improved access along the bankside London Loop footpath. This should also assist in our management of invasive plant species along here, which include Giant Hogweed and Himalayan Balsam. Species The number of species recorded at Heathrow went up by 58% to over 1,300 during This is due largely to surveying across a wider spectrum of wildlife groups and very probably involves many species that have been present for a while, rather than being new colonists in That said it is very encouraging to know that this many species make there home in and around the airport, and there are likely many more that are yet undiscovered. The greatest increase was in the number of plant species recorded on our biodiversity sites which rose from 180 to 420 and included some uncommon and locally rare species including: Annual Beardgrass and Wood Small-reed at Mayfield Farm and the blue-flowered form of Scarlet Pimpernel and Lesser Broomrape in the Colne Valley. The number of plants recorded included naturalised exotic species, but not those that had been deliberately planted. Surveys and Monitoring Approximately 400 survey or monitoring efforts were carried out across the biodiversity sites in This is roughly 90% of the planned survey effort. 4,020 biological records were collected over the year. The poor weather through most of the year yielded poor results in many cases particularly those involving insects. These surveys covered many species groups, from butterfly transects, bird counts and flora surveys, through to invasive species monitoring. In addition to this an outside specialist in spiders, Edward Milner, was brought in to survey the Colne Valley and Orchard farm site for the last three, very damp, months of the year. Amazingly he found 15 species of spider and 91 species of beetle that had been previously unrecorded on our biodiversity sites including several national Notable status species. This status is the next level down from the Red Data Book list of species. New sites In addition to the current nine biodiversity sites, which are covered by the Benchmark Award, several other are hoped to be added in the near future. These sites include Robb s Nursery, Colne Valley, Prince s Lakes, Dudset Farm and Spout Lane Lagoon. These additional sites will represent a large increase in the area of land managed for biodiversity at the airport, will add connectivity between other conservation sites and should hopefully increase the number of species of wildlife recorded at Heathrow. Twin Diverted Rivers Towards the end of the year, work started on cutting in-stream vegetation as part of the habitat management for the rivers. This also paved the way for the reparation of the bird netting that covers the water courses. The netting is required to prevent risk species of birds, such as ducks and swans, from using the rivers immediately west of the runways. Work on repairs to the netting should be completed by spring 2013.

3 2013 There are many tasks and surveys planned for 2013 to further improve our sites for biodiversity, nature conservation management and partnership working. Some examples include: Working as part of the Crane Valley Partnership to enhance the River Crane Corridor. Working as part of the Colne Valley Catchment Group. Working as part of the Hounslow Biodiversity Partnership. Work with LB of Hounslow to restore Donkey Woods/River Crane wet woodland. Strengthen relationships with surrounding borough biodiversity/ecology officers. Expansion of the number of sites managed for biodiversity. Establish a programme of tasks for volunteers. Seek to re-introduce the regionally rare Water Avens to suitable sites. Seek to translocate part of our lone Water Violet population into other suitable habitats. Seek to improve the quality of our conservation grasslands. Begin Introducing the nationally rare native Black Poplar along the Crane and Colne rivers. Seek to have our bat populations monitored electronically to discover species present and numbers, in addition to the current roost box checks. If there is anything you would like to know about the wildlife or our sites at Heathrow, or if you have any wildlife you d like to report, please see my contact details below. Yours sincerely, Adam Cheeseman Biodiversity and Landscaping Manager, Heathrow Airport adam_cheeseman@baa.com

4 2013 Biodiversity Benchmark Performance Report Biodiversity Benchmark Award In 2013 Heathrow was awarded the Royal Society of Wildlife Trust s Biodiversity Benchmark Award for the management of the Heathrow Biodiversity Sites. Receiving the award involves meeting a number of different criteria, the table below shows how we have progressed in the past year in meeting these criteria. Each criterion has been awarded a Red, Amber or Green status to show how our management is progressing towards fulfilling the criteria. Green indicates that the criterion has been fully met. Amber indicates that this criterion has been met but still requires some work to be fully completed. Red status would indicate a significant gap in performance. The status of each criteria is decided both from the comments of an external auditor and from our own internal reviews. As can be seen, we continue to make good progress towards meeting the criteria though there are still some areas to be improved. Benchmark Requirement 1.1 Policy 1.2 Partnerships 1.3 Performance 2.1 Surveys 2.2 Legislation and other requirements 2.3 Assessment of Impact 2.4 Objective and targets 3.1 Biodiversity Management System 3.2 Responsibilities and Resources 3.3 Training and Competence 3.4 Communication 3.5 Documentation 4.1 Measurement and Monitoring 4.2 Identifying and dealing with Problems 4.3 Internal Audit 4.4 Management Review Status

5 Sulphur Cinquefoil (Mayfield Farm) Peacock (Colne Valley) Robin (Causeway NR) Six-spot Burnet Moths (Twin Diverted Rivers) Soprano Pipistrelle bat (Clockhouse Lane Pit) Roesel s Bush-cricket (Camp 4)