Parish Wildlife from the Launceston Branch of Cornwall Wildlife Trust


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This website  has been designed to support wildlife conservation in 18 parishes in North Cornwall, UK. This corresponds to the area managed by the Launceston Group of Cornwall Wildlife Trust and is bounded by the coordinates (NW) SX 150 960 and (SE) 380 740 The main role of the website is to support a major survey project, as discussed below, but the intended audience is much wider  - individuals, schools, conservation groups, parish councils, visitors etc - wanting to learn about the status of local wildlife, events, meetings etc. It is being developed with encouragement from Cornwall Wildlife Trust, North Cornwall District Council, The Environment Agency and ERCCIS (the Environmental Record Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly).
 
This is a long term project that is still gaining momentum. The structure of the site is now established, but the content, especially the individual survey projects, is far from complete. The long-term objective is to create a a robust structure supporting local wildlife conservation that can be replicated around the country. Much of the content will be common to all areas of the UK. If anyone is interested in this, or would like to get involved in the project in any capacity, or have other comments to make,  we would be pleased to hear from you. 

The Need for Local Surveys Often steps are taken to "improve" and conserve wildlife, but resources limit the surveying that can be done to assess the impact of changes. Judging from our membership, many people are interested in wildlife conservation and may keep records of what they see. Others observe relevant things, but do not know how or where to record the information. This is a gap that the survey project wants to fill, by providing a mechanism to coordinate local records and by designing simplified surveys that can be conducted by volunteers with minimum skills. The survey project was proposed as a Millennium initiative - see below. The survey project is to be parish-based, with a Parish Coordinator acting as an interface with the trained leaders. This allows volunteers to contribute in their own back yard and in areas that they are familiar with and allows easier dissemination of the findings via parish notice boards, parish councils, etc

Natural Pioneer Millennium Awards supported the initial training to lead volunteers in surveying. The award also covered the acquisition of books and equipment for use on the projects. The study is intended to record and monitor as many aspects of wildlife in each parish as we can, using local volunteers. Primarily, these will be CWT members, but this is not a requirement; anyone who has an interest in wildlife conservation would be welcome.  

For any information about the site contact the webmaster