Quarries; Biodiversity; Consciousness

Education & instruction
Environmental sciences & ecology

English

Biodiversity perception in the Extractive sector - Lessons from the Life in Quarries project

[en] Action D.6 - Socio cultural monitoring of communication actions / consciousness of the sector for biodiversity - Final report

14 December 2021

Université de Liège, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Gembloux, Belgium

Life in Quarries - LIFE14 NAT/BE/000364

EU. LIFE - European Union. LIFE programme

Extractive sites are profoundly interlinked with their territory. Through their life cycle, quarries modify the landscape with machines progressing through mineral deposits and constantly creating a large diversity of temporary habitats, sometimes left to evolve to ones that are more permanent. In many cases, the biological role and ecosystem services provision of quarries are neglected though they are playing a significant role as stepping-stones in ecological networks and regulating green infrastructure in landscapes. In highly urbanized and controlled landscapes, quarries are an exceptional opportunity to maintain rare and threatened transient habitats hosting fugitive species. Low perception on the biodiversity potential in quarries would jeopardize dynamic management for such biodiversity installation and could prevent an optimal restoration of ecosystem services in the post‑exploitation phase. On active sites, promotion of biodiversity management requests training campaign increasing awareness and competencies. Such trainings are facilitated when they are based on the values and knowledge of the actors at all positions of the business ecosystem. An understanding of biodiversity perception of the sector is thus necessary to identify potential lockouts and opportunities This report is a deliverable of the Life in Quarries project (LIFE14 NAT/BE/000364 hereafter “Life in Quarries”) under action D6 – Socio cultural monitoring of communication actions / Consciousness of the sector for biodiversity – following the implementation of the project between 2015 and 2021. It synthetizes the results of quarry personnel interviews conducted in 2016 and 2021 aimed at assessing knowledge evolution on quarries’ biodiversity resulting from the implementation of concrete conservations actions (project’s actions C), the development of quarry personnel awareness and understanding through trainings (action E5) and implementation of dynamic biodiversity management (action D5). According to the objective of action D6, it allows to: “Evaluate precisely how the communication, dissemination and demonstration actions of the LIFE IN QUARRIES have changed the behaviors and motivations of the sectors and to reveal the innovation lock-out provided by an effective awareness raising strategy.”

since 16 December 2021