Life In Quarries Project - Biological inventories - Biodiversity management implications

Abstract

Throughout the life of quarries, a large diversity of temporary habitats is generated, sometimes left to evolve to more permanent ones. In urbanized and controlled landscapes, quarries are an exceptional opportunity to maintain rare and threatened transient habitats hosting fugitive species. While the extractive industry is willing to understand and manage sites’ biodiversity, lack of knowledge on the true biodiversity potential can jeopardize fugitive biodiversity installation successes and prevents an optimal restoration of ecosystem services in the post exploitation phase. A partnership build between FEDIEX, coordinating the project for Walloon quarries, University of Liège, Natagora (NGO) and Plaines de l'Escaut Nature Park allows the private and public sector to work hand in hand in the LIFE In Quarries (LiQ - LIFE14 NAT/BE/000364) in order to develop nature during the exploitation phase. Preliminary actions include the realization of initial inventories of quarries’ biodiversity in order to develop site based biodiversity management plans. 14 sites of a 1st project phase were inventoried in 2016. Habitats cartography following the WalEunis typology was realized along with standardized inventories for 5 biological groups relevant to the LiQ actions: Flora, Amphibians, Reptiles, Odonata and Birds. With occurrences of: • 82 species of the patrimonial flora; • 12 out of 13 species of Walloon Amphibians; • Six out of seven species of Walloon Reptiles; • 32 out of 64 species of dragonflies and damselflies; • 101 species of breeding birds; our inventories confirm the importance of quarries for targeted groups. We will herein further present results of quarries’ inventories as well as implications for the management of biodiversity. We will also present the process and resulting objectives of management plans concerted along with quarry operators. These management plans forecasted to be implemented between 2017 and 2019 we will finally illustrate the main project actions through concrete conservation actions realized on sites