International Year of Biodiversity

Our Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are just that! They contain this country’s finest landscapes and countryside and are home to some of our most exquisite and unusual wildlife species.

They are protected landscapes, managed through local partnerships on behalf of the nation. Biodiversity is a part of what makes these landscapes special. It is not a case of biodiversity or landscape.

The protected landscape approach emphasises the integration of humans and nature, not the attempted isolation of one from the other. It presents an opportunity to understand better the relationship between people and their environment and recognises that to conserve biodiversity in many parts of the world we must also pay attention to cultural diversity.

AONBs work at the landscape scale. This, however, is not synonymous with large-scale habitat restoration. It is an approach that goes to the heart of our relationship with the environment. It relies on an understanding of our place within the environment, our impact upon it, and the processes that operate within it. It is an approach that is focused on sustainability.

The family of AONBs supports the aims of the International Year of Biodiversity. Biodiversity is life.

For more details see the www.biodiversityislife.net website for events throughout the year.