Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Environmental Records Centre (BMERC) has been collecting information about
local biodiversity and geology since the
1970s. Our work is an extension of the County Museum’s
natural history collections, which have provided a physical record of
Buckinghamshire’s wildlife for over 100 years.
Today BMERC collates information from a variety of sources. Records from
museum specimens provide a further source of data, and the museum
collections are a valuable resource to assist with identifications and to
track changes in our environment.
BMERC is a partnership between
Buckinghamshire County Council and Milton Keynes Council, and receives
additional funding from Aylesbury Vale District Council, South
Buckinghamshire District Council and Wycombe District Council.
What is Biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the number and variety of species and habitats that
are found in a particular area. You may have heard the term used to
describe world biodiversity, but it is also used for much smaller
areas, such as the biodiversity of Buckinghamshire or the biodiversity
of a woodland or pond.
Why record this information?
If we want to conserve our environment, we need to find out as much
as we can about it. Details of where important species, habitats and
geology have been recorded are used to safeguard their future, because
if we know where they are we may be able to help protect them from human development.
Once this information has been collected and analysed we can use it to
identify the most important wildlife and geological sites and assess
whether a development, such as a new road or building, will have an
impact on the local area.
We can also build up a picture of what is happening to biodiversity in
Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. We can tell if the distribution of a
species is increasing or declining and we can analyse dates to find out if
wildlife is emerging earlier or later each year. This type of information is
particularly valuable when it is combined with that from other areas to give
a picture of what is happening nationally, or even internationally.
What information is recorded?
The information we collect is usually in the form of individual records.
A record is an observation made at a specific location, by someone
on a given date. For example:
a Rabbit seen at Wendover Woods by Peter Smith on the 22nd May
2000, or
an Ammonite fossil found at Bugle Quarry by Ann Jones and the
14th August 2001
There are over half a million records on
the BMERC database, from Badgers and Bluebells, to Chaffinches and chalk grassland.
Who records it?
BMERC collates and stores records made by other people, including records
sent in by volunteer recorders and recording
groups, surveys by professional ecologists, and data held by other
organisations.
Access to information
The Environmental Records Centre supplies information to anyone who is
interested. We regularly receive enquiries from members of the public,
professional and volunteer recorders, students, consultants and developers.
Much of the data we hold is shared with others via national
recording schemes and the National
Biodiversity Network.
