Climate emergency: LGA poll shows more than nine in 10 residents support increased biodiversity - Local Government Association

Ninety-four per cent of residents polled by the Local Government Association want to see increased biodiversity in their area, including the planting of trees and protection of green spaces.

The survey for the LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, found that encouraging people to be more eco-friendly through recycling and less plastic use, and increasing the use of renewable energy were also high up on the priority list for residents, with both receiving over 90 per cent.

The LGA says that the position of councils as place-shapers, convenors of local partners and communities, asset-owners, problem solvers and significant purchasers puts them at the forefront of delivering real, tangible changes in the transition to net zero.

Nine out of ten councils had declared a climate emergency and as part of the great work councils have been doing across the country to protect our environment and reach net zero, many have developed projects to encourage wildflower growth, plant trees and protect biodiversity in their communities.

Some examples of innovating and effective council plans to increase and protect biodiversity include:

• City of York Council is creating an extensive community woodland on 78 hectares of land to the West of York with the ambition to plant 50,000 trees by 2023 as a nature based solution to climate change mitigation.
• The Cambridge Canopy Project – part of the Interreg 2 Seas ‘Nature Smart Cities’ project – seeks to grow Cambridge’s urban forest, increasing tree canopy cover from 17 per cent to 19 per cent by the 2050s.
• The Wiltshire Community Environmental Toolkit has been developed by Wiltshire Council in partnership with Natural England. It allows communities to take the lead in defining and restoring biodiversity in their community by providing a structure for how local communities can better understand what they already have in terms of biodiverse habitats, as well as how to plan for developing greater biodiversity and nature-based carbon sequestration in the future.
• The North Devon Biosphere Reserve is jointly funded by Devon County Council, North Devon Council and Torridge District Council. The Biosphere is launching an ambitious new Nature Recovery Plan to tackle the ecological emergency in northern Devon, aligning with the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan and the Prime Minister’s pledge for 30 per cent of the UK land to be protected by 2030.
• Surrey County Council has committed to facilitating the planting of 1.2 million trees - one for every Surrey resident - by 2030.

But the LGA is warning that a skills shortage in ecologists is a worrying barrier to achieving biodiversity net gain goals, with only one third of planning authorities in England having access to their own ‘in house’ ecologist.