Hall Publishes Biodiversity Audit

The Hall took part in a baseline audit of its biodiversity on the Queen’s Lane and NSE sites over 9th & 10th week of Trinity term 2021. Students, staff and Fellows participated in the audit which involved measuring the different landcover types, trees, birds, insects and earthworms.

Full results from the audit can be found at the following link but headline features include: i) vegetation in the college grounds currently stores ~25 tonnes of carbon (which equates to around 92.4 tonnes CO2e); ii) the QL and NSE sites support 58 trees (30 different species); iii) the College grounds provide habitat for 18 different species of bird, of which 15 are classified as of conservation concern; iv) over 500 insects were captured during a 3-day interval including 126 bees and insects known to be important for pollination and pest control; v) Sadly we appear to have only one earthworm in the College grounds!

In total 18 colleges took part in this biodiversity audit exercise and there are plans to repeat this on an annual basis to enable us to record trends in biodiversity, and the success of any actions that we implement to increase overall biodiversity on college sites.

More information about St Edmund Hall’s Sustainability and Strategy is available on the website.