Ecology Plan

Conserving and enhancing our natural resources is essential to sustainable development and good quality of life for everyone. Conserving our ecosystems and the biodiversity that they support is essential to our health and wellbeing and should be central to all our thinking and planning for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Download the Ecology Plan

The Ecology Plan is both a statement and a guidance document, to ensure that university personnel are equipped with the background information, direction and the means by which the ecology and biodiversity resources can be safeguarded for the future.

Ecology Plan

Protected Species

Our campus isn't just home to students. The University estate supports a huge variety of important or protected species, including bats and birds. Some species use university buildings throughout the year as their habitat and as a result, projects are underway to improve the way we build and maintain campus.

Further to this, the University Grounds and Clean team monitor and maintain over 278,000m² of woodland, approximately 390,000m² of grass and over 84,000m² of hard surfaced area; Keeping all 578 acres of campus a happy home for all the important wildlife here.

Two bats roosting in a building on Campus.

Teaching and Research

Current NERC-funded research which is using the campus landscape is demonstrating a greater potential for trees to re-evaporate rainfall during large storms and so leave less to produce floods.

The River Eden Demonstration Test Catchment (EdenDTC) is a Defra-funded research project. The aim of the project is to assess if it is possible to cost-effectively reduce pollution from agriculture, whilst maintaining agricultural productivity.

Researcher using scientific equipment in a grassland field.

Get involved

Launched in 2015 to engage with students and promote sustainability, Green Lancaster has evolved to become a passionate community, committed to tackling the toughest environmental issues of today. The Green Lancaster team host a wide variety of events and initiatives throughout each year to give everyone the chance to get involved.