Biodiversity Action Plan for Gloucestershire
The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP) was published back in 1994 as the UK Government’s response to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In 2011, as part of a government review, the UK BAP was closed and succeeded by the subsequent ‘UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework’, published in July 2012.
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Conservation efforts in Gloucestershire
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Pre-2012, the Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) for Gloucestershire contained a series of Habitat Action Plans and Species Action Plans. These took into account national priorities using the knowledge of local experts to devise what action we need to take 'on the ground' to conserve and enhance biodiversity. The Gloucestershire BAP can be reviewed below, dated 2000, but please note that this is no longer a live and updated document.
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From 2007, there was a review of Gloucestershire's local BAP, which moved us towards a more spatially-based biodiversity delivery framework. This resulted in the compilation of the Gloucestershire Nature Map in 2008, which was updated in late 2011.
By 2012, Local Nature Partnerships were announced and this biodiversity framework was subsumed into what is now the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership. GLNP adopted Nature Map with a focus on priority habitats and species, which quickly saw them being incorporated into Defra's call for Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs), based on Nature Map’s Strategic Nature Areas (SNAs). These were established to create joined up and resilient ecological networks at a landscape scale.
More recently, with the launch of the Government's 25 Year Environment Plan, the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership are in the process of developing a Nature Recovery Network. This initiative provides us with the opportunity to draw together all past works in a revised spatial format, looking to identify not merely where our special wildlife and natural habitats currently are, but also the opportunities that exist for enhancing and creating additional habitat networks and connectivity - whilst also helping to strategically inform development and growth opportunities locally, rather than simply hinder them.
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