| From the conservation section Our Senior Conservation Officer writes... The work of the conservation section continues to develop and expand. The Records Centre is a key part of this, as is the Countryside Advisory Service. There is always a danger, however, of becoming too inward-looking and not being adventurous or imaginative enough in our future plans. The Biodiversity Initiative and The Wildlife Trusts’ Conservation Plan have both been produced recently, and give plenty of food for thought about what we should be doing for wildlife in Cornwall. It is up to us to set our local priorities for action accordingly.To achieve this, a "Members’ Conference" will be held at the end of March, which will help us set our priorities for the year 2000 and beyond. Speakers will include Simon Lyster, Director General of the Wildlife Trusts, on his first visit to Cornwall. A leaflet with details of the conference is enclosed with this edition of Wild Cornwall. You are are encouraged to come along and have your say! Cornwall Local Records Centre Following the transfer of the former Cornish Biological Records Unit (CBRU) to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust last year, all species, habitat, site and subject files on paper have been incorporated into a single system. The CBRU library and the Trust’s library now form a single resource that will be put onto a library database soon. Special thanks are due to Stella Turk for all the work she has done in these areas. Electronic biological records were held on the ERICA database at the CBRU. This ran on a minicomputer at the University of Exeter. The database has now been rewritten by Colin French, as a consultant to the Trust, to run on a personal computer. It is installed and operational at the Trust, and works alongside the Trust’s other systems such as Recorder and the ArcView Geographical Information System. An operations manual and development plan is currently in draft form and a consultation process is taking place. This will guide the operation of the Records Centre for the foreseeable future and will also allow fund-raising priorities to be determined. Close links have been established with the newly formed Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation of Biological Recorders (CISFBR). Countryside Advisory Service Between 1st May 1997 and 31st October 1997, 46 site visits were undertaken, including 27 farms, five schools and four churches. Twenty-one telephone enquiries were answered, with information and advice being sent out or given over the telephone. The Trust helps landowners with grant applications wherever they are available and appropriate. In the last six months, eight have been successful, including four Countryside Stewardship applications, and the Trust has a further 11 schemes lined up.
Dormouse - one of the focal speciesprioritised in the Wildlife Trusts' Conservation plan. Illustration: Sarah McCartney Members’ Conference 
A very exciting suggestion by the Trust’s Executive Committee, after discussing
The Wildlife Trusts’ Conservation Plan and the Cornwall Biodiversity Initiative,
was to hold a one-day Members’ Conference. The aim would be to set, in the light
of the the national plan and the Biodiversity Initiative, the Cornwall Wildlife
Trust’s priorities for future action.The conference will be held at the end of March, with key national and local speakers and plenty of opportunity for members to have an input through discussion and workshop sessions. Christopher Howe Conservation and Education- Caradon Country Service commissioned these boards, lavishly illustrated by Sarah McCartney, to promote the Looe Voluntary Marine Consesrvation area. Photo: Mark Nicholson Apologies for my slight (!) editing error in the last issue. In fact, Cornwall lost 71/2% of its wetlands between 1988 and 1995, not 72% as stated. That’s still an awful lot of this precious habitat to lose though. Mark |
