East of England Biodiversity Forum

Photo credits:
The National Trust


As the East of England has such a rich and diverse natural environment, with many rare habitats and species, its protection is vital.

This biodiversity is important as it benefits us all in so many ways. Quality environments allow the potential of a variety of ecosystem services to secure many environmental advantages. It can also bring economic dividends and social rewards by contributing to an enhanced quality of life.		But to safeguard and/or reap these various biodiversity benefits calls for co-ordinated policies and comprehensive action plans.


The Biodiversity Forum – the vital bridge between national policy and local action

The purpose of the East of England Biodiversity Forum is to help formulate co-ordinated policies and encourage action plans that reflect national biodiversity policies at every level.

The Forum
Knowledgeable and experienced
The Forum provides a supportive interface that helps to align European/ national policy with local activity. It comprises public agencies, county partnerships, local authorities, conservation NGOs (see Glossary), professional and amateur experts.

"The Biodiversity Forum - steering the East of England's contribution to UK biodiversity”

Comprehensive aims

The Forum provides:

a focus for national and local biodiversity issues
a forum of experts from a range of organisations
a network for contending with biodiversity issues
a capacity to integrate biodiversity initiatives with the East of England's
policies and strategies

Three core goals

All of these features are being harnessed to help to achieve the Forum's three overarching goals:

i. the securing of a resilient environment so that adaptations to climate change are smoothed

ii. a demonstration that people in the East of England benefit from its biodiversity

iii. enabling biodiversity to be perceived to be at the heart of regional policy-making

Seven tasks
To achieve these ends the Biodiversity Forum, in association with the East of England Environment Forum, pursues seven vital and interrelated tasks:
- influencing policy – from the local to the national level
   - overseeing the mapping of biodiversity
   - producing a biodiversity audit
   - establishing biodiversity targets
   - encouraging projects
   - supporting local action
   - communicating success and good practice

Delivery Plan

To co-ordinate this activity the Forum has produced a detailed Delivery Plan (to view the 'Delivery Plan' click here and has now adopted an integrated approach that combines habitat targets (click here) with key species considerations (click here).