No single organisation can achieve everything that is required to safeguard the city's special biodiversity. Everyone has a part to play in his or her professional and private lives. Local people can help in a range of ways, such as volunteering to take part in practical conservation or gathering biological records that can contribute to the national and local biodiversity plans. Even simple actions such as feeding garden birds or joining local wildlife societies such as the Hampshire Wildlife Trust can help.
If biodiversity is to be successfully protected, action and support is required from a range of partners including developers, local communities, local experts and City Council contractors. All of these partners will be given the opportunity to become involved in the biodiversity planning process to ensure ownership of actions.
At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro governments, including the UK, made a commitment to ensure that action was undertaken to conserve biodiversity of habitats and species. In the UK over 500 threatened habitats and species have been identified. National Biodiversity Action Plans are being implemented to aid their recovery.
Biodiversity provides the raw ingredients for our quality of life, our food and clothing, health and relaxation. We don`t yet know the full value of some species, for example some plants may have potential for treating cancer and others may have agricultural importance. Research has shown that a rich and natural environment is important to promote human health both physically and psychologically.
Biodiversity is an important element of sustainable development. If development harms or reduces biodiversity we will be handing to our children an environment that is poorer than the one we were fortunate enough to inherit.
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