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Renewable Energy positive and negative impacts on Biodiversity

Renewable Energy positive and negative impacts on Biodiversity. Changing habitat opportunities for farmland wildlife. Energy crops are structurally very different from conventional crops Fewer applications of fertilisers and herbicides

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Renewable Energy positive and negative impacts on Biodiversity

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  1. Renewable Energypositive and negative impacts on Biodiversity

  2. Changing habitat opportunities for farmland wildlife • Energy crops are structurally very different from conventional crops • Fewer applications of fertilisers and herbicides • Impacts on biodiversity will depend on type of crop, land use being converted and management of crop

  3. Energy grasses-Comparing Miscanthus with Reed Canary Grass Semere & Slater, 2005

  4. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) Miscanthus More open patches More weed cover More birds recorded More worms More large beetles, Spiders and Springtails Wheat Dense even cover Fewer weeds More skylarks More small beetles and flies

  5. Impacts on biodiversity depend on management systems Roth et al (2005)

  6. Short Rotation Coppice- potential positive impacts • Several studies in last 15 years mostly in pre-commercial plots • Sage & Robertson (1996) found similar birds in SRC to traditionally managed willow coppice • In Sweden several bird species benefited from the planting of SRC

  7. Willow Oak Birch Hawthorn Poplar 450 423 334 209 189 Kennedy & Southwood (1984): Scots pine Blackthorn Alder Elm Crab apple . . False acacia 172 153 141 124 118 2

  8. DTI funded ARBRE studyWhat is the wildlife potential of commercially managed SRC • Compare 22 SRC fields with arable and grassland controls • Plot size 5 - 27 ha, in central England. • Four-year cycle • Birds, plants and butterflies surveyed in all 44 plots throughout

  9. Number of plant species in SRC & arable controls

  10. * Summer migrant ** Wlnter only

  11. Birds in large commercial SRC fields

  12. Positive or negative impacts for open farmland species?

  13. Some species may not benefit from planting SRC in the UK

  14. Impacts on biodiversity depend on habitat being replaced

  15. Good management practices will improve biodiversity value of the crop • Avoid sites with existing value to wildlife • Encourage mix of land-uses • Headlands and rides • Low inputs

  16. What we don’t know: • Colonisation processes- how important is adjacent habitat • Bird productivity • Regional variations • Enough about the impacts of intensively grown energy grasses

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