North of England Conference
Date of next event: Spring 2013
Date and venue of last event: 26th March 2011
Attended by: 150 bat workers and bat enthusiasts, living and working in the North of England.
Sponsored by: Natural England
Outputs:
Delegates highlighted the following areas of work during the'priorities' open discussion session:
- Lobbying for bats at the national level, to ensure bats don’t lose out from policy and organisational change
- Leading on national initiatives for key bat conservation issues
- Helping to build and strengthen the bat group network where there are gaps
- Raising BCT’s profile in the national media
- Delivering bat conservation at a landscape scale
- Ensuring appropriate use of bat boxes
Due to timing constraints, not all delegates had the opportunity to share their views during the session and further priorities were raised with staff after the discussion session:
- Professional training and licensing, to help take the pressure off bat group and Natural England trainees
- Continue to act as a source of energy and enthusiasm
- Continue to assist with common bat group problems based on BCT’s wider national experience: many bat groups seem to go through similar cycles and problems, and having a source with a national context and advice on what has worked elsewhere is useful
- Start putting a proportionate effort into northern bat groups, as has been done down south on the basis of rare species research. This has resulted in disproportionate investment in southern groups because of the species they have on their patch. In many cases we now know more about the ecology of scarce species that we do about the common ones.
See meeting minutes above for a full record of discussions
Many thanks to Natural England for supporting this event.
