Biodiversity Policy & Lobbying
Biodiversity is the variety of all living things. It includes all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, plants, fungi, bacteria and viruses.
Bats make a substantial contribution to the UK's biodiversity, comprising around one third of all our mammal species. Human activities have increasingly and continue to change the environment we live in resulting in substantial declines in biodiversity.
The Bat Conservation Trust's biodiversity team actively promotes bat conservation through its policy and lobbying work. This includes:
1. Promoting bat conservation through being the lead partner for five of the UK's bat species on the UK's list of Priority Species (the new UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) list).
2. Responding to consultations and lobbying the relevant statutory authorities and other organisations in relation to areas of concern for bat conservation.
Protecting our Biodiversity
The United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992 committed member states to conserve their biological diversity and set a global target 'to achieve a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss'. In Europe however the goal is that 'biodiversity decline should be halted with the aim of reaching the objective by 2010' known as the Countdown 2010 initiative. We are now less than 1000 days away from the end of 2010 and there is still a lot of work to do.
Throughout the UK, BCT is working to maintain our bat biodiversity. We have 17 species of bat and we wish to see the populations of all these conserved and, where possible, enhanced.
All of our bats and their roosts are protected by law. Legislation is one way of maintaining bat biodiversity and shows that the Government thinks that conservation of bats is important.
BCT's Bat Biodiversity Project delivers a whole range of actions in conjunction with the Statutory Nature Conservation Organisations, volunteer bat workers, other environmental charities, sectors of trade and industry and government departments to help ensure that bat biodiversity is maintained. Further details of our work on policy and lobbying can be found on the consultation and lobbying pages.