The second of two blogs reflecting on our learning from our role as a Responsible body. On our journey so far we have reviewed projects large and small, from complex and ambitious schemes to those that retain agricultural function whilst still increasing biodiversity. Below we explore key themes that occur and how this impacts our processes.
With a collective and long-acquired knowledge base, and in our role as a Responsible Body, we are often asked about how we approach overseeing restoration schemes, particularly those that are larger-scale.
As a Responsible Body, we are dealing with habitat banks (schemes) which range in size from 4ha to 580ha, with an average size of around 35ha. As more Conservation Covenants come online the size and range of sites will continue to vary and that is why our approach is not “one size fits all”. We deal with each scheme individually, taking into account the uniqueness of each site and working closely with the client to help them meet their aims and goals, while making nature restoration count.
We are seeing a number of recurring themes during early client discussions and through the ecological due diligence process. These include phasing (delivering the scheme in more than one phase), potential changes in the future (e.g. climate change impacts on habitats), and working with dynamic systems or unknowns which require adaptive management to be factored into schemes, alongside addressing risks and appropriate remediation to ensure that habitat target conditions are met. The larger a scheme is, the more these factors come into play as larger sites are more likely to add ecological complexity, a broader range of unit types, and show complexity in other factors such as ownership, land titles and governance.
Phasing
As mentioned previously, larger schemes often need to be delivered in phases. As a Responsible Body this phasing results in greater costs to the client as the number of compliance checks increases (despite us co-ordinating monitoring of different phases where possible). Schemes where habitat creation/enhancement can be achieved in one phase, naturally require fewer compliance visits and costs can be reduced.
Natural regeneration approaches
Often larger sites undertake a level of rewilding, using natural processes to achieve nature restoration goals. Where rewilding and natural processes are built into a scheme we will take the adaptive and dynamic nature of these approaches to restoration into consideration in our ecological due diligence. We will explore your plans for intervention and monitoring and work with you throughout the ecological due diligence process. This ensures that the Conservation Covenant will be effective and will deliver both for nature restoration and your needs.
We explore levels of acceptable change (i.e. departure from expected delivery), over the 30-year timeframe to allow for the dynamism of a rewilding approach to restoration which differs to a more prescriptive approach to habitat creation. Through our role as a Responsible Body we ensure and enforce regulatory compliance and assurance helping deliver high quality large-scale restoration schemes.
We have been fortunate to enter into Conservation Covenants with a number of large-scale schemes who are making great advances in nature restoration and rewilding, including Wendling Beck Environment Project, Belmont Estate and Nattergal.
Project scale, costs and time
As schemes become larger there are other elements that may impact on time and costs:
there is a greater level of reporting, GIS data management, and information provision to cover larger number of features and phases
more communication with clients and ecologists will be needed during legal and ecological due diligence.
more time is needed to update Habitat Management and Monitoring Plans (HMMP) because of the complexity of such schemes.
Despite working with a number of larger-scale schemes we do not underestimate the value of smaller habitat banks, and we are here to work with you whatever the size of your scheme, helping to deliver robust and resilient nature restoration across England.
Please get in touch via responsible.body@rskbiocensus.com if you would like to know more about how we can help with your project – big or small.
Tim Graham and Phoebe Carter