Biodiversity

April 2, 2024

No Mow May

Last year the University took part in No Mow May on central campus for the first time. This means central lawns that would normally be cut were left to grow throughout May.

The main objective was bring landscape management for biodiversity to the centre of campus to raise the level of consciousness about biodiversity issues. Often biodiversity projects are pushed to the outskirts of central campus where the majority of the University community never see them. By bringing No Mow May onto central campus we would be put biodiversity action right in front of people.

Our secondary objectives were to seek a boost in vegetation and invertebrate diversity on central campus in line with the national No Mow May findings; and we wanted to test the assumption that we would face a lot of resistance to a project like this where we would be changing how central campus looked and the expectation for it to look neat and tidy.

No Mow May is Plantlife’s annual campaign calling on gardeners and landowners to leave the mowers in the shed and allow flowers to grow. May is a crucial month for flowering plants allowing them to get established and provide nectar for pollinators and other invertebrates. Just 8 dandelion flowers are enough to produce the nectar sugar needed by a bumblebee each day.

We already leave large areas of our grasslands throughout Spring and Summer as hay and wildflower meadows. We have publicly available plans on our grassland management and future plans for boosting the diversity of these existing meadows. No Mow May goes beyond this in asking people to leave traditionally mown lawns throughout May to boost the available food for pollinators and other invertebrates in this specific time. These lawns are amenity lawns that are usually mown fortnightly throughout this period.

Engaging Students

With the project being so visible we sought to engage students to use their skill sets and apply them to this on campus project.

Conservation students were asked to used their surveying skills to collect data on species richness over the course of the project, and the Conservation Society took this on as an extra-curricula activity.

The signs that communicated the project were created by a Graphic Design student from KSAP as part of their Learning Enhancement Week. A group of graphic design students were briefed on the biodiversity crisis facing invertebrates, what No May was and what the University would be doing. They then produced a series of designs with the winning design being placed around central campus. The signs included a QR code allowing people to find out more and provide direct feedback to the project.

Feedback

We received feedback through three predominant channels: direct emails, submissions through the feedback form and verbally at events, meetings and informal exchanges.

In a six-week period starting from the beginning of May we received and had 98 exchanges about the project. Of the 98, 95 responses were wholly positive, 2 mixed and 2 negative.

The positive responses echoed one another with the same themes coming up:

Proud to see their university taking part in No Mow May
Found the effect beautiful and calming during exam term
Pleased to see more insects and appreciation of nature on central campus
Requests to extend the timescale or space

Of the 2 mixed responses, there was some confusion why some areas of campus were still being mown; and that whilst supportive they thought central campus looked scruffy. The 2 negative responses were additionally that it looked scruffy and that it should be elsewhere on campus; and that it was only being done for cost saving measures.

Overall the visual impact was well received by the vast majority. There was a sense that the campus felt fuller and more alive. Respondents were noting down different species that they had seen and a common theme was that they were pleased and proud to see their University taking part.

“Excellent to be part of a University that is looking out for nature. Requires joined up thinking between the sustainability team and estates team. Well done University of Kent.”

Reputationally, the impact of doing something so visual that our staff, students and visitors can see and directly engage with is significant. The cost of this project was extremely low so the impact of the numbers of people that engaged with the project as well as those that just would have walked past and see it is huge and not easily replicated by other engagement activities. People have a desire to see the University being proactive and visible in this space

A lesson learned was that our signage and pre-information could have been better as to inform people which lawns are part of No Mow May. A common question and concern was that people saw mowing happening in other areas (namely courtyards and banks) during May. If we are to do this again we need to look at how we communicate which lawns are included.

We also had people ask why we cut it in June. Why were the lawns not left to grow throughout summer as much evidence shows is better for wildlife?

It was always the intention to cut the No Mow May lawns back in June as the project title suggests. That doesn’t mean the rest of our grasslands were cut at the same time. Only those three lawns in the trial – Registry lawn, front library lawn and side library lawn.

Whilst many of us would like to see the lawns left longer there was some concern about how central campus would look after another month or 2, and how much work it would take to restore the lawns over the winter. Amenity/short cut lawns do serve a purpose on campus for people to sit and gather, as well as for events and recreation. We will never get it perfectly right for everyone in this regard but hopefully our work beyond central campus can demonstrate our commitment to biodiversity beyond May.

As part of the trial the Conservation Society carried out a basic vegetation survey at the beginning and end of the month where they measured sward height and species diversity.

Overall, there was an increase in diversity across the lawns surveyed with the exception of Eliot Lawn which was the control lawn and still mown throughout May. This meets our expectation but there were also some interesting surprises that we were not expecting.

Our amenity grassland is much more diverse than it looks, over the course of 4 weeks 41 different species were surveyed without any additional seeding or work, just the absence of mowing. The central campus can be very valuable as a food source if allowed to grow longer. Certain species were flowering within the first two weeks before the sward height started to get really long. Supporting these early flowering species by not mowing in these areas so frequently could support invertebrates beyond Now Mow May.

Further data analysis could be done to look at coverage of certain species. Complimentary surveys of invertebrates should be done during future No Mow May projects.

No Mow May 2024

It is our intention to carry out No Mow May again this year incorporating the feedback we received last year. We hope that this can become an annual project that engages people with our wilder campus brought to the central campus.

January 29, 2024

The University of Kent has been awarded a gold award at the Wilder Kent Awards 2023

The Wilder Kent Awards is a scheme set up by Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT) to recognise and reward the work schools, Universities, businesses, and community groups are doing in helping to create a Wilder Kent. By taking positive actions to restore nature, collectively, we are helping to create a more climate-resilient county and provide a home for wildlife.

Emily Mason, Sustainability Coordinator, receiving the Gold Award on behalf of the University. Alongside former student Bella Sabin-Dawson who now works for KWT; and Lewis Smith, President of the Conservation Society who received a commendation.

This award reflects the cumulative work of the Landscape and Grounds Team, Commercial Services & Estates Department, Sustainability Team, Conservation Society, Kent Community Oasis Garden and BioBlitz Committee to deliver work across our campuses to deliver sustainability improvements, support and enhance our natural spaces for wildlife and to engage our staff, students and the local community in our actions to address the climate and nature crises.

Kent Wildlife Trust commented that, “The University of Kent have developed a robust landscape and biodiversity strategy which ensures the entire campus supports a range of wildlife as well as hosting a biodiversity forum which allows students and staff to directly engage in decision making and project creation. With 300 acres of woodland, grassland, and seven ponds across their sites, there is plenty of space for wildlife to thrive at the University of Kent.”

The award is split into three categories: Protecting Wildlife; Sustainability and Carbon Reduction; and Engage with Nature. Here are some of the activities and projects we have been working on to support wildlife and reduce our impact in 2023.

There have been some large and small scale landscape projects over the last year including the planting of 300 fruiting trees to create an orchard on our Southern Slopes. This project is creating a habitat and landscape feature that we do not already have on our campus, and because orchards are a mosaic of trees, grasses, and wildflowers, they support a wide range of wildlife. As fruit trees age quickly, they create the perfect habitats for invertebrates and birds, such as the lesser spotted woodpecker and the rare noble chafer beetle.

Andrew Bailey from the Landscape and Grounds team, supporting student Jessica Collins in planting trees at the orchard.

We also introduced No Mow May to our central campus for the first time, with students from the Conservation Society surveying for species changes across the month. The project received 98% positive feedback from students, staff and community members walking by. Signage for the project was designed by students from our School of Architecture and Planning as part of their graphic design module.

These projects are underpinned by the ongoing management of our landscape by the Landscape and Grounds Team, including the rotational coppicing of our woodlands and extensive grassland management for meadow retention. The Landscape and Grounds Team have been instrumental in supporting the changes across campus and adapting their management techniques to support nature. This and more is outlined in our Landscape and Biodiversity Strategy which targets us to make year on year improvements.

The University’s Sustainability Strategy for Climate Action and the SDGs underpins much of this work setting out our key strategic objectives to reach Net Zero by 2040; regenerate the ecology of our campuses; and to ensure our students have access to learning, teaching and research that enhances their understanding of sustainability.

Our carbon management work saw emissions reduce by 14% from our baseline keeping us on track to achieve our net zero target and we are currently finalising a strategic partnership with Siemens to develop this further and to develop the culture of a whole-university approach to net zero.

A key part of our activities is engaging people with nature and making them feel connected to their local environment. Within the University we host a Biodiversity Forum which is made up of students and staff with an interest in biodiversity, as well as key operational and academic staff that can support action and research opportunities. The forum is an important way of making the work we do on campus more collaborative and informed by a broader audience.

The student led Conservation Society are also instrumental in engaging their fellow students in conservation action across campus and the local area, supporting local conservation organisations, the Kent Community Oasis Garden and the campus with their volunteering and expertise.

Beyond our own campus we engage with the community through our annual BioBlitz. Organised predominantly by students from the School of Anthropology and Conservation, the bioblitz hosts an engaging 24 hours of surveys, activities, and is a celebration of nature. The blitz is open to everyone and designed to be family friendly, with students engaging the local community if their passion for wildlife.

MSc Conservation Biology graduate Kieran Richardson leading an invertebrate survey during the BioBlitz.

We are also members of the Canterbury District Biodiversity Network, representing Kent on the coordination committee and supporting the network to bring interested parties together and raise awareness of the incredible wildlife and work being done in our district. As part of this network we are the proud home of a Bison Mural to raise awareness of the local wilding project happening on our doorstep in Canterbury.

For those that are working to support wildlife across our campuses this award is a wonderful recognition of all our efforts. It is particularly special to receive this acknowledgement from Kent Wildlife Trust who are doing incredible work across the county and local to us in Blean. This award spurs us on to continue with our biodiversity work and continue to build partnerships with those working to create a wilder Kent.

You can listen to more about our work and the award in episode 6 of KWT’s Talk on the Wild Side Podcast.

August 28, 2020

What has changed in 35 years?

The original nature trail on the Canterbury campus was devised in 1985 and written by John Kesby and Ian Swingland. Here are the opening paragraphs from the original guide:

“The nature trail around the University’s 300 acre campus, with its magnificent hillside setting overlooking the Cathedral City of Canterbury and the valley of the Great Stour, has been devised for the benefit of its staff and students, members of the local community and of the thousands of people who visit us during the year, be they conference delegates or holiday makers.

The trail combines the opportunity for attractive walks around the grassy slopes, ponds and woodland of the campus with a challenge to discover how much you can see or hear of the abundant wildlife around us. This brochure will guide you to places where you can find nightingales, willow warblers, great spotted woodpeckers and even the occasional kingfisher, to observe damselflies or Essex skippers; to watch out for lizards, newts, three-spinned sticklebacks or voles; to identify parrot wax caps, prickly lettuce, bristly ox tongue or red goosefoot. We hope it will be enjoyed by those who have difficulty putting a name to even the most common flora and fauna. At the same time, we hope it will be of interest to knowledgeable naturalists and of value to parties from the schools of other groups of wildlife enthusiasts.”

Whilst the description of the campus overlooking the Cathedral may still ring true the list of species that could be seen on campus in 1985 would be much shorter today.

In order to map out what we have lost it is useful to fully understand what we had. Thankfully we have a few copies left of the 1985 guide with its detailed species lists. The Sustainability Team will be digitising all of this information so that it will be available to everyone so that as a community we can start to identify what we still have on campus, what is hard to find and what is gone.

Some trends of population decline go far beyond what we control on campus, however, there may be some species that are found locally that we may be able to encourage back through how we manage our campus and connect to habitats beyond our borders.

We would like students, staff and community members to help us with this undertaking by, in the first instance, recording what they spot. Big or small, common or rare we want to know what you have seen and where you have seen it. At the moment we are just asking people email their information into us at sustainability@kent.ac.uk and we will collate it all as a first step to building a clear picture of what we have on campus.

We are also working on rejuvenating the information about the nature trails and rerouting the original trail around some of the new buildings on campus that now block the original route.

If you are interested in this project and want to volunteer your time on this, please do get in touch.

August 27, 2020

What is coppicing?

At the University of Kent we carry out coppicing across the Canterbury campus as part of our woodland management plans.

The practice of coppicing can be dated back to the Stone Age and is the traditional woodland management technique of repeatedly felling trees at the base and allowing them to regrow. On campus we usually wait around 15 years for a tree to regrow before we fell it again. We work on defined areas within our woodlands, coppicing one section each winter then moving onto the next section a year later. This means we end up with a very diverse range of ages in our trees across our three areas of woodland – Parkwood, Brotherhood wood and Bluebell blue.

Coppicing was traditionally done in order to provide a sustainable supply of timber, however this is not why we coppice at Kent. Our primary goal for coppicing is to improve the health of our trees and create additional benefits for other wildlife. Coppicing is a human intervention that somewhat simulates the act of retrenching (when trees naturally drop their branches to extend their life) which helps our trees live longer within our woodlands. By removing sections of canopy we are increasing the amount of light that can reach the woodland floor. This allows other species of vegetation that are dormant in the seed bank in the soil the chance to grow and increase the diversity of that area. This increase in vegetation increases the amount of habitat and forage opportunities for insects, birds and mammals.

When we coppice we do not clear fell the sections, instead we ensure that very mature trees are left in place, species such as oak and ask are left and we leave a proportion of ivy, holly and bramble to ensure there is cover and forage for other species. We also leave any newly emerging vegetation and any deadwood we find which is useful for insects.

Whilst coppicing we also take the opportunity to remove any invasive vegetation from the area and collect any litter we uncover.

May 7, 2020

Hedgehog Awareness Week 3rd – 9th May

Hedgehog Awareness Week is organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) and takes place every year. It aims to highlight the problems hedgehogs face and how you can help them.

The hedgehog is in trouble, with populations plummeting 50% since 2000. Increasing habitat loss means hedgehogs are moving out of their rural homes and into built areas. But here they face a whole host of challenges, including road traffic, litter, poisoning and lack of access to food and water. In 2019 the RSPCA saw Hedgehog admissions to their wildlife centres break all records with 2770 hedgehogs being admitted. Reasons for this include variations in weather causing a reduction in food availability meaning hedgehogs struggling to make it through the winter.

We are lucky enough to have hedgehogs on our campus however, the roads that cut through campus are causing particular issues with hedgehogs being hit by vehicles, as well as litter causing issues for hedgehogs and other wildlife on campus.

In July 2019 The University launched it’s participation in the Hedgehog Friendly Campus project- created at the University of Sheffield to use the unique spaces that university campuses are, to raise awareness of the plight of UK hedgehogs and take action to safeguard their future.

The University has a hedgehog action group made up of student and staff volunteers from across the University working together to address these issues. This group has taken a number of actions to help support hedgehogs on campus including litter picking, awareness raising and providing toolbox talks for the Landscape and Grounds Team so that they know what to do if they find an injured hedgehog, how to check for them before strimming and what are the biggest risks to hedgehogs on campus.

The University was awarded a Bronze certificate for its efforts by the Hedgehog Friendly Campus Project earlier this year and since then the action group have been developing plans for further initiatives we can do, including surveying and signage.

Whilst we are all in lockdown there are number of things we can all do to help support local hedgehogs, especially those of us that have gardens. Simple actions like: creating a log pile, checking areas before strimming, and building a hedgehog home can make a huge difference to your local population of hedgehogs. This year the BHPS are asking people to talk to their neighbours (from a distance) about cutting a CD case sized hole in the bottom of fences to create a hedgehog highway between gardens.

You can find out more information about things you can do on the BHPS website and get involved with the University of Kent Hedgehog action group by emailing sustainability@kent.ac.uk. Throughout the week the Sustainability Team will be posting tips, actions and activities on their Instagram @unikent.sustainability

You can also download some activities for children by clicking on the images below:

November 14, 2019

The University of Kent is working to become a Hedgehog Friendly Campus!

Hedgehogs are declining rapidly in the UK, with populations dropping by up to 50% since 2000. Loss of habitat and exposure to many threats, such as road traffic, litter, poisoning from slug pellets and lack of food, are having a significant effect on this iconic mammal.

The University of Kent is working to help make its Canterbury campus a safer place for hedgehogs. Hedgehog Friendly Campus is a national accreditation scheme through NUS and funded by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. Through signing up to the Hedgehog Friendly Campus scheme, Kent aims to improve staff and student awareness about the decline of hedgehogs and hedgehog friendly behaviour, and look into how we can help our hedgehogs living on campus.

Our Hedgehog Friendly Campus working group is made up of staff and students from across the University. The group runs awareness campaigns, organises events, such as litter picks and hedgehog surveying, and promotes hedgehog friendly practices.

If you are interested in helping our campus hedgehogs, please get in touch with: sustainability@kent.ac.uk

If you see a hedgehog that looks injured, sick or out in the daytime, contact the British Hedgehog Preservation Society on 01584890801 and/or take it to your local vets – find more advice here.

https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/found-a-hedgehog/