Betts Estates holds and manages land to conserve and enhance biodiversity. The sites under our stewardship usually comprise land left over after development or other changes of land use, or they may be associated with "biodiversity impact offset". Sometimes this is covered by planning Conditions for aftercare and monitoring, sometimes not, but our "Ecosystem Care and Repair" land regeneration approach ensures that sites which would remain of poor ecological quality or tend to become vandalised and degraded, are enhanced and protected. The operations we carry out through Betts Estates hold the greatest potential of all our work for safeguarding and promoting biodiversity. Our growing portfolio of land is managed to recognised best practice standards, helping to mitigate negative ecological impacts and contributing to modern targets of sustainability and to offset losses of biological diversity.

The nomination by the United Nations of 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB), and the EU support for it, are driving many innovative projects in the UK and worldwide. Betts Ecology and Betts Estates have responded by increasing investment and activities. We have several new projects for the IYB to enhance biodiversity and promote "ecological sustainability". These include programmes to create an inventory of all the species on the land we hold, habitat creation and enhancement, initiatives to attain "favourable conservation status" for threatened species, schemes to involve local people in an effort to eliminate fly-tipping and the vandalism that is so sadly prevalent in the hinterland of our towns and cities, several training and education ventures including a bat roost web cam feed and a wildlife observation hide over a major river, and even work to help avoid and mitigate ecological impact on West African rainforest.

These are challenging but exciting times. We welcome your interest and feedback. Please use our contacts page to email us.

Other pages in the Betts Estates section:
Stewardship, Habitat Repair & Land Regeneration
Management Plans
Sustainable Drainage (SuDS) & Reed Beds
Invasive Species
Offsetting Biodiversity Impacts

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