Local Biodiversity Action Plan
The Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) considers the wider role that biodiversity plays in providing benefits to Bridgend County Borough.
Bridgend has a wealth of biodiversity with many rare and locally significant plants, animals, insects and other species, such as organisms living in soil. The habitats these species are found in provide many different functions, which are often called ‘ecosystem services’.
The biodiversity of Bridgend, supplies a wealth of different environmental benefits. This interaction between biodiversity and ecosystem services is explored in the LBAP.
The Local Biodiversity Action Plan: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Assessment and Revision 2014 is our Nature Recovery Plan.
It lists our habitats as well as risks to them, and makes suggestions for conserving them.
The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Assessment - Technical Report supports this document.
Together they are known as the Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP).
How to use the documents
This LBAP is designed to work with other key policies that support local planning policy.
In particular, the LBAP should be read alongside the Landscape Character Area (LCA) report by Land Use Consultants (LUC, 2013).
The LCA describes our county borough’s different parts and what makes them unique.
Ecosystem services
The LBAP notes the good that nature does for humans, which are referred to as ‘ecosystem services’.
For example, the land does us a service by purifying rainwater for people to drink. Nature does these valuable things for free, and if it didn’t, humans would have to pay to artificially create these services.
The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Assessment and Revision document recommends how these services can be improved on. Meanwhile, the technical document describes the ecosystem services in each part of the county in detail.
