BU has taken the next step in our journey to support nature, by joining 500 other educational institutions to pledge to be a Nature Positive University (NPU). The NPU was founded by UNEP and University of Oxford in partnership with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
This pledge means that we want to further develop our actions and work together with other institutions to promote nature on our campuses, in our supply chains and within our local community.
You will have already seen some of our efforts on campus to support nature, including wildflowers, new trees and leaving some areas un-mowed to support nature. Other things are not as visible, such as bird and bat boxes, hedgehog homes and policies. Our Biodiversity Policy which forms part of our EcoCampus ISO 14001 certification and our Climate and Ecological Crisis Action Plan (CECAP) help guide us. We hope that being part of the Nature Positive Universities will help us gain new ideas and support and help us to develop further.
One of these ideas has been using technology to engage students with nature. So, this year we had our campus mapped by Campus Biodiversity Network meaning that any species spotted on our Talbot, Lansdowne and Chapel Gate campuses could be recorded on the map using the iNaturalist app. In May we held our first BioBlitz to encourage students and staff to identify as many plant and animal species on our campus as possible within a set time period using iNaturalist, and thanks to our student and academic experts from the Faculty of Science & Technology a total of 174 species were identified during the BioBlitz! Anyone can continue to log species, and this will give us a living record of the range of nature we can all see on campus. We encourage you to keep logging species so that we can see the progress of our efforts to support nature.
BSc Ecology and Wildlife Conservation student at BU, Chloe Horry said, “I participated in the BU BioBlitz as a student expert in bumblebees! This helped me to understand the biodiversity on campus and if the flora is beneficial for fauna as a patch between protective areas. This was an amazing opportunity to refine my identification skills and assist others.”
Anyone in the community can learn about the different species found on our campuses by visiting our Bournemouth University iNaturalist Project page.
Find out more about what BU are doing to protect and preserve a sustainable environment on our website.
