The ecoregen toolkit

Ecoregen.org History - it was a great site. Here is a small part of it so all of that great work is not lost!

The ecoregen toolkit aims to help you answer some important questions: 

• Community — what do local people want?
• Ecology — what would nature do if left to its own devices?
• Design — how do you develop a plan that satisfies both?
• Delivery - who will do the work?
• Economics — who will pay for the work and the long-term management?
• Sustainability - what is the long-term vision for the site?

  

What was there before?

The past of a derelict site is more than history. It has helped and hindered what a site has come to be at the present time and bequeaths us physical remains and memories which can help make a future for it.

 

Maps

Many places have a rich record of maps which can give a graphic picture of what sites now derelict were like in the past. In Britain, the Ordnance Survey, many local government offices and estates have early editions of maps which can give details of older landscapes, the terrain and vegetation, the pattern of settlement, enclosure and communications, and the industrial development. These can help us unfold a story of landscape change, seeing how much and how fast a site altered, and give clues about the meaning of surviving landscape features and place-names.

 

Maps of Darwen Parkway from 1835 and 1939 show it as farmland before it became a series of sand-pits and railway sidings.

 

The ecoregen toolkit

ecoregen aims to help you restore land in a way which is community-led and ecologically-informed.

 

This toolkit provides a reference library for those looking for detailed information about land restoration techniques. Some of the information contained in the toolkit is therefore of a technical nature but each section contains useful contacts who may be able to help you develop your ideas further.

 

Working with people — how to involve the local community in making decisions about land in their neighbourhood and encourage them to volunteer their time to bring about change.

 

Working with nature — how to understand the natural ecology of a site and work with the grain of nature to enhance the ‘healing’ process and deliver a cost-effective solution.

 

Making it happen — how to negotiate the financial, legal and management issues that need to be considered when restoring land and where to go for specialist help and advice.

 

Making it last — how to ensure that once your restoration project is completed the site isn’t left to become derelict again including advice on long-term maintenance and funding strategies.

 

Sharing knowledge - an on-line library of publications and websites dealing in detail with many of the aspects raised.

 

Sharing experience - examples and case studies which have been collected together to provide ideas and inspiration for those looking to restore land in their community, together with a discussion forum to help you share information and find answers to your questions.

           

What is there now?

Knowing what plants and animals are present on a derelict site, how viable their populations are and how they are organised into the pattern of communities are essential first steps in using an ecological approach for restoration.

  

Consulting nature

In political terms, asking what is there now on a derelict site can be considered as a process of consultation with nature. The plants and animals on a site comprise living communities of their own: they depend upon it, their development is part of its history, and the successions they are involved in can give us one lead into a sustainable future.

 

Surveying the plants and animals on a derelict site is about making nature a partner in a restoration project. It can also be a way of getting local people involved in the site.

   

Ecological survey

Ecologists use particular techniques for this kind of scientific consultation, sampling plant and animal communities in systematic and robust ways, making inventories of the populations, mapping the distributions and the measuring the pace of the changes that are in train. Details of some important standardised survey methods can be found at the web site of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and on the UK Biodiversity web site. These methods include the National Vegetation Classification, the Common Bird Census (amongst other Bird Surveys carried out in Britain each year) and the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Some European wide surveys are also conducted such as the European Bird Census. Modern technology can provide accurate and sophisticated assistance with survey though these aids are no substitute for expert skills of species identification and ecological understanding. It is important to use a standard technique when surveying so that other people can compare the data to different sites and observe any trends over time by using the same technique.

 

Groundwork has pioneered a new site survey technique using global positioning by satellite (GPS) and geographical information systems (GIS). Click here for a fuller description of this approach and a link to an on-line demonstration.

 

When the patterns and processes on a derelict site are understood, predictions about what could happen next become more secure and informative and can lay the foundation for sustainable management.

 

Predicting successions

Putting together information on the vegetation patterns on a derelict site and an understanding of the underlying environmental influences, means that we can better identify the sequences of plant communities that are part of the successions represented there. Not all these steps will be represented at the present time. In some places, succession will still be in its early stages and here we can characterise the composition and structure of vegetation types that are yet to appear if succession proceeds unhindered. Elsewhere, the succession may be far advanced and we can predict what the earlier stages would have been like.

 

At many site it is possible to predict what direction vegetation succession will take. This example is from Darwen Parkway in Blackburn the direction of succession is influenced by acidity, fertility and wetness.

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