The Targeting and Planning Map is a tool aimed at those people looking for more information about their natural environment, specifically to help them identify what may be a priority for enhancement through a scheme such as Environmental Stewardship Scheme (ESS), or similar. It also allows people to gain some perspective on how important the features identified in their local area are in relation to the national resource, or whether they are in an area of particular significance or priority. Knowing this context will help you as many environmental enhancement schemes, such as ESS, require that an application addresses, at the local level, national or regional biodiversity priorities.

The new Targeting and Planning Map can therefore contribute towards the development of a more appropriate Environmental Stewardship Scheme application or course of conservation action. Users are likely to include biodiversity professionals, planners, conservation officers, scheme applicants and/or their advisors, and researchers from across the environment sector.

The three streams of the Targeting and Planning Map (see What's in the Targeting and Planning Map: BAP Priority Habitats stream, What's in the Targeting and Planning Map: Priority Catchments stream and What's in the Targeting and Planning Map: Farmland Birds stream) can be used collectively or independently to answer a range of possible questions. These could include for example:

• Which BAP Priority Habitats are present in my local area (English Civil Parish / National Character Area / Government Region etc) and where are the individual sites?
• How important is my National Character Area for lowland calcareous grassland compared with other National Character Areas nationally?
• Is my land holding located within a Priority Catchment or close to a designated site known to be at risk of diffuse agricultural pollution?
• Is my land holding close to a recently recorded population of corn buntings?
• Which protected species have been recorded in my local Site of Special Scientific Interest? (enabled via the National Biodiversity Network Gateway link)

Answers to questions such as these will enable you to:

• Develop a more informed and appropriate conservation management plan or scheme application for your area.
• Identify sites most at risk or in need of certain types of activity.
• Determine a range of features or priorities that might be present in your area and therefore identify win-win scenarios for wildlife.
• Identify the broad patterns of biodiversity interest within different types of areas, to inform the development of larger scale strategies.

Caveat

The information available on BAP Priority Habitats is not complete, but these maps represent our best assessment of the distribution and extent of these habitats. It is possible to query individual polygons for quality information such as the level of certainty associated with their inclusion in the dataset.

The Farmland Birds stream presents the results of an analysis of recent data (from both national and local sources), collated on certain Farmland Birds only. For a more complete overview of the Farmland Birds stream please see What's in the Targeting and Planning Map: Farmland Birds stream.

Other species and habitat information may be available via local voluntary recording groups, Local Biological Records Centres and large biodiversity organisations. We intend to actively encourage these bodies to use the NBN Gateway to make their data more accessible and hence provide a more comprehensive service. You can help this process by supporting your Local Record Centre and/or recording groups and making your biodiversity data available through these local routes or directly to the NBN Gateway.

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