Regional Habitat Targets now published

 Exciting news from SITA Trust

We are delighted to announce that we will be offering a new three-year Enriching Nature Programme that will run from 2010 - 2012.

The Trust has committed £8m in new funds to this programme. There will be three funding rounds per year in each of the years 2010, 2011 and 2012. Applicants may request up to £120,000 for an individual project.

We welcome applications to this funding programme from not-for-profit organisations with projects that focus on conserving a species or habitat identified as a priority in the UK BAP process. As a previous applicant to SITA Trust’s Enriching Nature programme, we wanted to let you know of the new funds available.

Previous successful applicants to SITA Trust’s funding programmes can apply for new project sites. To apply for a site which has previously been funded an applicant must wait three years from the date that any funding agreement was signed. If this affects you and you wish to know the date of any previous funding agreement, please call our team on 01454 262910.

Applications to the new fund must be made online using our new online application system. Once you’ve registered on this system you can revisit your form as often as you wish before submitting it to the Trust for consideration. We will not see the form until you submit it to us.

For more info on the programme including deadline dates and an application guide visit www.sitatrust.org.uk/nature-funding

North West Habitat Targets

The latest version of the North West's contribution to the national biodiversity targets has now been published. After building on the regional cut of the England targets with wide consultation amongst regional agencies and organisations and Local Biodiversity Partnerships, a final set of targets for 25 broad habitat categories has been agreed and published.

In November 2006 a revised set of UK Habitat Action Plans were published following approval by Government Ministers. The revised targets had a number of new features, which include:

• a new structure - nearly all are now quantified and allocated to standard categories, making assessment more objective and facilitating the link to local biodiversity partnership targets;
• for some groups of habitats, new types of targets have been set that aim to improve the resilience of habitats in a changing climate.

The new targets focus on 4 key areas for each habitat:

Maintaining Extent - Maintain current extent of the resource. Aim for no reduction in the area of habitat that qualifies as the BAP type.

Achieving Condition - Maintain or improve condition within the existing resource. Aim to maintain the condition (where it is good), and improve the condition (where it is poor) of the existing BAP habitat resource.

Restoration - Improve the condition of relict habitat so that it qualifies as BAP habitat. Aim to restore areas of degraded habitat or remnant elements to a state where it is considered to be BAP habitat in good condition. This leads to an expansion of the extent of the BAP habitat.

Expansion - Increase the extent of the resource. Aim is to establish BAP habitat on land where it is not present and where no significant relicts of the BAP habitat currently exist.

Further details on the new UK and England targets can be found at UKBAP. The latest regional targets can be downloaded from this page, or go to Regional Biodiversity Targets page for further details.