BTCV : CVNI : Tree Campaign

Biodiversity is the variety of life! It includes everything around us from dragonflies to gorse bushes, spiders to oak trees, rivers to woodlands. It includes the diversity of habitats and of species, and the genetic variation from one individual to the next that makes each one unique.

Biodiversity is essential to our everyday survival. It provides us with clean water, air to breathe, medicines and food to eat. It enhances our quality of life.

The International Day for Biological Diversity is on 22 May. This year's theme, "Biodiversity and Agriculture", seeks to highlight the importance of sustainable agriculture not only to preserve biodiversity, but also to ensure that we will be able to feed the world, maintain agricultural livelihoods, and enhance human well being into the 21st century and beyond.

How can Conservation Volunteers help you help biodiversity?
We provide advice and information about biodiversity. We involve people in improving local habitats for the benefit of biodiversity. We monitor these sites to measure those improvements and to make sure they are working. We show people how to grow native plants that they can then use to help support local wildlife. We run training courses to help people manage land sympathetically; to help them identify what species and habitats they manage for and monitor how their management is affecting biodiversity.
Contact us for more information on CVNI-Biodiversity@btcv.org.uk

Learning
We run a programme of training to help anyone gain the knowledge and skills to improve their environment. Training is available in different practical skills, habitat management, people management and wider environmental knowledge to name a few! There are opportunities to gain qualifications through NVQs and other forms of accredited training.

The Green Machine
The Green Machine is an environmental outreach programme, where Conservation Volunteers staff deliver environmental games, talks and activities to schools and all types of youth groups throughout Northern Ireland. Workshops cover topics like biodiversity, but also recycling, the natural world around us and many more. The Green Machine itself is a 7-metre lorry and can be used as a base for these activities!

Plants
Our nurseries are playing a part in maintaining the gene pool of native species by growing some of the wildflowers, trees and shrubs which are in decline, helping to preserve our irreplaceable insect, mammal and bird life.

Our tree nursery sells local provenance trees grown from seeds collected from native woodland in Northern Ireland. They also stock some long established non-native trees and all the accessories you will need to get your trees off to a good start.

Our wildflower nursery supplies native wildflowers grown from locally collected seed. Ornamental shrubs, chosen for their wildlife value, are also available.

Practical Action
We offer a range of practical action through our Conservation Action Teams. Delivered from our five offices, projects are carried out across Northern Ireland by teams of staff and trained volunteers. We can carry out tree and hedge planting, fencing, hedge laying, dry stone walling, shrub and wildflower planting, woodland management, pond construction, living willow structures, shrub clearance, path construction, wildlife and community garden creation, site maintenance and more.
To find out more or to arrange a site visit, please contact your nearest office.

Spring into Action
Spring into Action begins tomorrow. To mark the start in Northern Ireland there will be a special event at Cave Hill Country Park this coming Friday 2 May between 10.30am and 1pm. Why not pop along, as the event is also celebrating the completion of the path restoration with refreshments in the zoo afterwards! For more information about this event contact Helen Tomb.

Environmental Protection Agency
Green Beauty Queen, Aine Gormley, otherwise known as Miss Earth, recently took a wheelbarrow full of petitions to Stormont calling for the creation of an Environmental Protection Agency.
Read more

Listen out for the cuckoo...
Almost everyone knows the cuckoo's call. By letting the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR) know where and when you heard a cuckoo, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the status and distribution of the cuckoo within Northern Ireland.
Download a recording card - PDF (1.4MB)

...and look out for a barn owl
Barn owls generally occur in the drier areas (yes, they exist!) of Northern Ireland. They are associated with lowland farmland, hunting for small rodents and nesting in holes in trees or undisturbed buildings where they can gain access. Their numbers are declining and more information is being sought to fill in huge gaps in our knowledge in terms of their ecology, distribution and behaviour.
Find out more here

Planet Earth Under Threat
Here's the eighth and final episode in the BBC's Planet Earth Under Threat series is called, unsurprisingly, "The Future". You'll need RealPlayer to listen to this.
Listen to this programme

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