The Wildlife Trust’s “Biodiversity Benchmark” is a prestigious and difficult to achieve standard for land management that requires land-owning organisations to meet and implement over 70 requirements that demonstrate continual biodiversity protection and enhancement on a landholding.
Blackburns farm awarded prestigious Biodiversity Benchmark
Presenting the certificate for The Wildlife Trust’s “Biodiversity Benchmark” -a standard for land management- to Blackburn’s Farm, Wrea Green, Borough of Fylde, Lancashire
Who else meets this biodiversity benchmark?
Currently, 12 organisations have The Wildlife Trust’s Biodiversity Benchmark, including 9 Aggregate Industries Quarries, 5 Center Parcs Forest Holiday Villages, the land surrounding 7 EDF nuclear power stations and around Gatwick and Heathrow Airports, Network Rail’s Channel Tunnel Rail Link between London & Folkestone, 2 SES Water sites, 15 Tarmac Quarries in Northumberland and North Yorkshire, the Met Office HQ and the Toyota GB HQ. The number of sites that have The Wildlife Trust’s Biodiversity Benchmark is 50 which cover over 8,500 hectares of land.
Of those 50 sites only 2 are in the area covered by the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester & North Merseyside, i.e. Aggregate Industries Back Lane Quarry near Carnforth, and the land outside EDF’s nuclear power station at Heysham which is managed by LWT as one of its nature reserves.
Blackburn’s Farm is a 30-hectare (75 acre) site that supports areas of broadleaved woodland, 3.5 kilometres of hedgerows, 13 ponds, and 3.8 kilometres of arable field margins. Two of the ponds were found to meet the site selection guidelines to be Biological Heritage Sites (Lancashire’s Local Wildlife Sites system) and support an impressive range of plants including Common Club-rush and Cyperus Sedge.
A wonderland of wildlife
Wildlife recorded on the farm to date by Lancashire Wildlife Trust staff, contractors, and local volunteers from the Fylde Bird Club includes:
202 plants;
118 moths;
83 beetles possibly including a species not recorded in Lancashire before!;
74 birds including Barn Owl, Goldcrest, Grey Partridge, Jack Snipe, Lapwing, Reed Bunting, Skylark, Tree Sparrow, Whinchat, Woodcock and Yellowhammer;
45 Hymenoptera (ants, bees, sawflies & wasps);
40 hoverflies;
38 Heteroptera (plants bugs) possibly including a species not recorded in Lancashire before!;
16 butterflies;
10 Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies);
7 mammals including Brown Hare and Hedgehog;
4 amphibians (Frog, Toad, Palmate and Smooth Newt); and
2 fish.
Blackburn’s Farm is the first site in the Borough of Fylde to receive The Wildlife Trust’s Biodiversity Benchmark but, not only that, it is the first farm in the UK to receive the standard. It gives me great pleasure to award the staff this framed certificate signed by Craig Bennett, the CEO of The Wildlife Trusts.