BIODIVERSITY WORKSHOP
FACILITATOR’S PLAN + NOTES
1. Plan
Time
Participants
are ...
Purpose
5 mins
Listening
Explanation of session.
Trying to understand the impacts of climate
change on the Broads’ biodiversity .
15 mins
Listening and
asking/answering
questions
Why are the Broads vulnerable?
What changes are likely?
Presentation
20 mins
Researching in
small groups
Three groups take their lists of (5) species and
research the effects of climate change on
them.
Trying to predict winners and losers.
Internet access for
research
20 mins
Making group
presentations.
Discussing.
Materials
Print out participants’
material
Groups feed back their predictions.
Who wins – who loses? Why? Do we care?
What can/should we do?
2. Notes to go with the presentation
The Broads is one of the UK’s very special places and it’s always changing.
Do you know much already about the Broads?
What single words would you use to describe the Broads?
Wet? Low-lying? Flat? Biodiverse?
Lying right over on the east of the country - very near the coast - it’s an area of
rivers and lakes.
In fact it’s 7 rivers, more than 60 lakes (known as broads) and 125 miles (200km)
of navigable waterways.
It’s a National Park – and there are only 15 of them in the whole country.
The Broads hasn’t always been the same.
In the past, there was a massive estuary here, where several rivers emptied into
the sea.
Much of the Broads area was under water 2,000 years ago.
Roman ships would have been able to sail on rivers which were over a mile wide.
The lakes that we now call the Broads were dug by people about 1000 years ago,
when the land was drier.
They were digging peat from the ground for fuel.
They left great broad holes - which flooded, and became the broads.
The biodiversity here is staggering. More than 11,000 species live here, many
unique to the Broads. It’s not just nationally important but globally important.
Many of its unusual species need clean, clear FRESH water.
(It’ll become clear in a minute why the word ‘FRESH’ is important.)
Water quality is one of the things that the Broads Authority has really
concentrated on improving since it was set up in 1988.
http://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/about-the-broads/wildlife
The Broads is home to more than a quarter of the rarest wildlife in the UK ...
and also to many classic, common species like mute swans which people enjoy
watching.
Many species depend on water for their livelihood.
Have you ever seen one? What do you know about them?
Fish like this perch are very vulnerable to changes in the water.
They can’t get away from it.
This is a traditional job in the Broads - cutting reeds.
It kept reedbeds in good shape for wildlife for centuries.
What do you think he wants those reeds for?
(The traditional use for reed was as thatching material for roofs.)
After a long period of serious decline, more reedbeds are being cut again now.
That’s good for the economy and good for biodiversity.
Anyone seen one of these?
The swallowtail is Britain’s biggest butterfly.
Once widespread across the country in wet places, it’s now found only in the
Broads.
Rare and impressive – they draw in lots of wildlife tourists during their summer
flying period.
How far would you travel to see one? (By car? By bike? On foot?)
Have you ever seen one? What do you know about them?
Another wild creature which lots of people want to see and hear is a bittern.
It’s very secretive but the males make an extraordinary loud booming noise in
spring.
It’s one of the most threatened birds in the UK - because reedbeds are rare.
Berney Arms Mill – a classic part of the Broads scenery.
What is it for? (Like most of the other mills in the Broads it was used for
scooping water out of the marshes into the river to make the land dry enough
for cows and sheep to graze it.)
This is one of the tallest ones in the Broads. If the land wasn’t so wet, no one
would have built these windmills.
This shows where the main areas of different habitats are in the Broads. The
pale green is grassland, the orange is fen, the black is open water.
It also shows how the whole Broads system drains into the North Sea, and how
close parts of it are to the coast.
One effect of climate change is the increase in the levels of salt in the waterways
(saline incursion) – through sea level rise and through storm surges getting
through or over the coastal sea defences.
The National Park movement was founded in order to enhance biodiversity.
It’s one of the primary duties for a National Park.
Biodiversity loss is proceeding at well beyond planetary tolerance.
The Broads holds over 11,000 species, 1,500 of them are of conservation
concern. 65 depend on the Broads and 5 species are being lost from the Broads
per decade.
This map shows the density of some of the rarest UK species that are vulnerable
to saline incursion. They are in contact with the water environment and what
happens to the water matters to these species.
So a stance could be to keep the area as fresh-water for as long as we can.
Many climate change impacts will only gradually become noticeable and
significant.
Flooding is one of the more obvious ones, and is already more frequent.
The big changes that are on the way are wetter winters, drier hotter summers,
more extreme weather events and sea level rise.
Look again at that map from 2000 years ago.
Those are the lowest lying areas.
Most likely to flood.
Flooding isn’t the only challenge.
Let’s remind ourselves... what are the other challenges which climate change is
likely to bring?
Read and take in
Some simple stories of decline ... wetland plants like marsh marigold - can’t
tolerate drought.
Some more complex stories – the decline in species which migrate here from
Africa – e.g. nightingales and cuckoos. Many causes – including loss of habitat
here and in wintering grounds in Africa. May also be that the timing of their egg
hatching no longer coincides with the ‘explosion’ of invertebrates their young
need. www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/24/birds-spring-population-decline
Some stories of increase ...
Data gathered by Butterfly Conservation shows that butterflies are already
strongly affected by climate change. Those species with a stable or increasing
population have been able to expand their range and spread northwards (where
suitable habitat allows). Butterflies like the Comma are moving 10km per
year. This is part of a major shift of butterfly populations across Europe that has
been going on for at least 20 years.
www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/climatechange/archive/2014/04/02/what-effect-is-climate-changehaving-on-butterflies.aspx
butterfly-conservation.org/48-4912/climate-change-sees-butterflies-move-north.html
The poor old perch again.....
Sea trout and eels can cope with saltier water
Read and discuss
Describes the task
Allocates the species to research.
Use any reference works you can lay your hands on.
You may find these webpages useful
www.enjoythebroads.com/discover/plants-and-animals
DON’T GO BEYOND THIS SLIDE UNTIL
THE GROUPS HAVE DONE THEIR TASK
AND PRESENTED THEIR FINDINGS.
These are our - tentative - predictions:
Winners
• Brown rat
• Little egret
• Seaweed – eel grass?
• Otter ?
Losers
• Swallowtail butterfly
• Fen raft spider
• Water lily ?
• Bats ?
Herring gull
● Grey seal ?
● Tentacled lagoon worm ?
● Eel ?
●
Fen orchid
Natterjack toad
● Bittern?
●
●
And the reasons behind them....
Group 1
Fen orchid
Brown rat
Water lily
Seaweed –
eel grass
Otter
Winner or loser? and why ...
L
Requires good quality calcareous water so this fragile
population is threatened by drought, or increased acid rain,
or inundation from polluted water or sea water, or lack of
management
W
Able to adapt to many different conditions and eats a wide
variety of food. Rapid breeder when conditions are right so
will thrive in most places
?L
Requires pretty good water quality
Can cope with a range of water depths but not lots of floods;
Cannot cope with salty conditions
?W Requires salt water and tidal water; could expand rapidly if
the conditions are right but prone to pollution/ too much
nutrient
?W Local populations thrive in freshwater although elsewhere in
the UK they live on the coast; need clean water and can cope
with some variable levels; can eat a variety of prey but
needs healthy populations.
Group 2
Herring
gull
W
Grey seal
?
W
Though associated with the sea, populations are now moving
inland; they are scavengers able to eat a variety of prey and
can nest in a variety of locations; being able to fly they can
also escape adverse conditions
Live in salt water and need good prey levels; if sea levels
continue to rise, more water will become salty giving new
opportunities; youngsters are born in the middle of winter
Eel
?
W
Natterjack
toad
L
Bittern
?L
and could be vulnerable to more storms
Start life in the sea moving to freshwater and wetlands as they
grow; often move to new areas in times of floods allowing
expansion; eat a variety of prey but do need clear passage to
and from the sea
Very specialised toad living in wet areas that tend to dry out;
can’t compete with other toads and therefore have restricted
conditions; variable rainfall and salt inundation would also kill
them off; can produce masses of offspring if the right
conditions exist.
Require large areas of undisturbed reedbed; need freshwater;
vulnerable to changing water levels flooding out the nest and
losing that year’s youngster.
Group 3
Little
egret
W
Spreading through England from the south and very possibly
because of warming conditions; able to find prey in fresh and
salt water; able to fly away from adverse conditions.
Fen raft
spider
L
Highly specialised spider living in good quality, calcareous
water with associated plants; susceptible to flooding and salt
water; drought conditions also restrict them
Bats
?L
Bats hibernate so longer periods of warmer weather could
increase insects numbers and so help them; but drought
conditions generally restrict insects and so hinder them;
flooding is difficult for them though as they fly then can move
away more easily than some species
Swallowtail
butterfly
L
Requires the milk parsley plant to be present for their
caterpillars which is restricted to suitable freshwater fens;
therefore likely to be vulnerable to salt water incursion and
flooding and drought conditions; although they can fly the
lack of suitable wetland limits their ability to move away
Tentacled
lagoon
worm
?
W
A tiny bristle worm that lives in mud tubes in estuaries. Scarce
now but appears to require brackish conditions.
Can’t tolerate too much salt or pollution or changes in
currents. Although more brackish conditions are likely, the
currents or too much salt might not help