Biodiversity and Geodiversity

 

 

 

Post-Operational Requirements

Once again, these requirements will usually be dictated by conditions attached to planning permissions and environmental permits or licences pertaining to the site in question, but the following generic requirements will usually be appropriate (whether or not they are enshrined in conditions):

• Completion of the agreed restoration scheme, subject to any modifications that have been agreed with the local planning authority and other stakeholders during the period of extraction. Such modifications may be necessary, for example to take account of improved knowledge and techniques, changed priorities and/or the implications of climatic and environmental change since the scheme was originally proposed (as informed by dynamic baseline monitoring).


• Implementation of the required aftercare, including (where appropriate) handing over of the management of the site to new owners, making sure that they are aware of the biodiversity and geodiversity features in need of ongoing management;


• Continuation of agreed post-closure monitoring schemes for habitats, species and the water environment, including submission of monitoring results to the appropriate authorities, liaison with other data holders, and liaison with / handover to the new owners of the site. Long term monitoring is of fundamental importance in judging the success or otherwise of habitat creation and other biodiversity improvement schemes, providing the feedback needed to improve best practice guidance and to measure the contribution to Action Plan targets;


• Responding as appropriate to monitoring results which require the need for action, including implementation of any further mitigation measures that may be necessary;


• Continued protection of the water environment following the cessation of dewatering and other site operations, through careful monitoring of water levels and water quality until new equilibrium conditions are established;


• Provision of permanent safe access, where possible, to any features of geodiversity interest, so that these can be visited and inspected by interest groups after the quarry has closed (subject to permission of the new site owners).

Once again, the various guides to good practice and organisations referred to earlier should be consulted for further details of the issues which need to be considered and the options available for dealing with them.

Definitions

Biodiversity is defined in the draft new PPS on Planning for a Natural and Healthy Environment L0545 (and in the original PPS9) as "the variety of life in all its forms". A more comprehensive definition is given in the Convention on Biological Diversity: "the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems" - CBD Article 2. UNEP 1992.

A widely accepted definition of Geodiversity, and that which is used in the draft new PPS, is: "the variety of geological (rocks, minerals, fossils), geomorphological (land form, processes) and soil features. It includes their assemblages, relationships, properties, interpretations and systems".

 

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