Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Corridors between separate units should be provided for in plans that
allow species to move between sites.
115
Communities that have become
isolated lose their resilience to external events.
116
The ability of species to
relocate is also important for the adaptation of biodiversity to a changing
climate. Species are expected to migrate as changes in temperature,
patterns of precipitation, and the biota that systems support alters
their
.
117
The identi
cation and protection of areas should
be extended for this reason to sites that may be suitable for migrating
species to colonise in the future even if they are not viewed as being of
ecological signi
'
climate space
'
cance in the present.
118
Plans should state the level of protection to be applied to areas
identi
ed in them as being of importance for ecosystem functionality.
Should activities that may disturb them be forbidden? Alternatively,
should certain uses of the land be prevented or made subject to prior
noti
cation and approval before they can be conducted? They should
also specify any positive requirements for maintaining and enhancing
the condition of sites that landowners should be required to observe.
Controls on particular activities and orders requiring that action be
taken to restore the condition of protected areas are used in the UK
under its legal regime for designating and maintaining sites of special
scienti
c interest,
119
although a report of 2010 commissioned by the
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the
UK
'
s network of protected sites identi
es several respects in which this
regime could be improved upon.
120
5.3.5 Decision rules
As the discussion of arguments for limits-based regulation in this chapter
reveals, the holy grail for environmental planning has been, and remains, the
establishment of grounds on which the relentless drive of economic growth
115
Bailey,
'
Ecoregion-based Design
'
,pp.90
-
3. J. Lawton et al., Making Space for Nature: A
Review of England
s Wildlife Sites and Ecological Network (2010), a report commis-
sioned by and submitted to the UK
'
s Secretary of State for the Environment, Farming
and Rural Affairs, also calls for the use of spatial planning to identify and establish
protections for corridors alongside other measures for transforming the UK
'
'
sfrag-
mented catalogue of protected sites into a functioning ecological network.
116
Walker and Salt,
,p.94.
117
E. Wilson and J. Piper, Spatial Planning and Climate Change (Abingdon: Routledge,
2010), pp. 334
'
Resilience Practice
'
-
6.
118
119
Rodgers,
Ibid
.
'
The Law of Nature Conservation
'
,pp.68
-
99.
120
Lawton et al.,
'
Making Space for Nature
'
.
