NATURE HAS ANSWERS

“Nature-based solutions” is something of a buzz-phrase just now. Left alone, natural ecological processes establish ecosystems adapted to the local environmental circumstances. These depend on many factors, including insolation, aspect, shading & temperature, weather patterns, seasonality, establishment/colonisation (known as ecesis) and the influence of animals and fungi, etc. Ecological communities change over time through successional processes, eventually reaching a climax unless succession is diverted by an event such as fire, flood, or perhaps vulcanism. Human activity, of course, has an enormous influence on how ecosystems develop and change, often leading to severe ecological degradation from excessively intensive development, agriculture, forestry or fishing. However, by working with nature rather than against her all the time, we can achieve healthier ecosystem function and help counter the extensive loss of biodiversity we are seeing almost everywhere.

Betts Ecology own and manage greenspaces which are mostly in the urban or peri-urban landscape, an environment that faces many challenges that degrade the ecosystem quality we strive to create and maintain – fly-tipping, litter, vandalism, excessive footfall, chemical contamination, dog mess, invasive species, eutrophication, light pollution and poor air quality are among the difficulties we face in our mission to create and maintain landscapes rich in native wildlife and to promote sustainable ecological excellence. However, where we remove or reduce these impacts, nature soon re-establishes rich populations of plants and animals, with little further intervention from us other than keeping the adverse impacts at bay and guiding successional processes to support the development of rich habitats.

When considering the best approach for a site, we assess the situation, evaluate the negative and positive factors, eliminate or significantly reduce the negative ones and allow nature, with an ongoing helping hand as needed to keep the adverse elements at bay, to apply the  necessary natural remedies.

Sometimes there are unavoidable insults to green spaces, such as having to install services such as underground pipes across meadow grassland. In such circumstances, Betts Ecology make careful plans to minimise the ecological impact and stimulate rapid recovery of the grassland ecosystem. This involves making a careful method statement, thorough survey of the trench line, establishing the collaboration and understanding of the contractors, minimising the area of operational disturbance, storing turf and soil so that it does not degrade and so it can be replaced in the same order as it was extracted. Even so, some, even considerable, damage to the grassland upper horizons is difficult to avoid, but nature provides such soils with seedbanks that grow rapidly when the work is complete as long as the seed-bearing soil is not buried too deep, and we collect seed when necessary from the meadow grasses and forbs near-by so that we have a supply to sow if needed. With this helping hand and concomitant monitoring, the pipeline scar is scarcely visible after a couple of growing seasons as nature heals the ground. Similar principles apply to most temporary habitat disturbances.