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The Steel Valley Project - the potential to enhance the level of biodiversity in Stocksbridge BUGS
- Biodiversity in Urban
gardens For
more information about biodiversity in urban areas
see the data from the local BUGS
project. The
project was based in the University of Sheffield
and concentrated on trying to understand the
potential role of domestic gardens in supporting
high levels of biodiversity within urban areas.
The
findings showed that city gardens which were
managed so that they supported lots of ground
cover, shrubs, ponds, herbaceous plants and trees,
rather than those consisting of nothing more than
an area of mown grass or paving, were much richer
in biodiversity than most countryside
areas. Our
gardens are an untapped resource which can be
changed by their owners to become rich in habitats
capable of supporting wildlife. How
to make wildlife
gardens
- for guidance from the Royal Horticultural
Society, and the BBC's information on
how
to garden for wildlife The
BUGS study is important for landscape management
within Stocksbridge. It shows that the natural/ or
'wild' landscape type, often presented by nature
conservation-based landscape managers as the
solution to enhancing the biodiversity value of a
greenspace, is not the only landscape type that
supports biodiversity. The fact that gardens can be
so rich a support for biodiversity means that we
can choose the landscape type that is appropriate
for our local open greenspace and that we can mix
the landscape types we use in urban areas. This
overcomes many of the problems that people have had
in that they do not want untidy looking greenspace
on their doorstep, although they like nature. A
gradation of landscape types (from looking 'wild'
to gardenesque) could be used within Stocksbridge -
it is up to local people to decide what they find
appropriate. An individual greenspace can support
several different landscape types - it is a design
problem, but it is also a financial problem, since
a gardenesque landscape costs more to make and
takes much more effort by the local community if
they are to be looked after properly. The
way local unbuilt land is used and managed (private
gardens, as well as public open green spaces) needs
to change if levels of biodiversity are to be
increased. Such change can only benefit the local
people by adding to their quality of life (contact
with nature and the everyday use of attractive
places have been shown to be factors enhancing
people's experience of their home
environment). |
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Text, Maps and Photographs (unless stated otherwise) © Steel Valley Partnership Stocksbridge, all rights reserved. Terms of use: Any involved in education or training may copy the contents of these web pages, with the proviso that they always make reference to the original copyright. |
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The Steel Valley Project , C/O STEP Business Centre,
Wortley Road Sheffield S36 2UH |
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