London provides a home for a remarkable range of plants and animals, and the habitats that support them. Small areas of semi-natural habitat such as ancient woodland, chalk grassland, and heathland, coexist with more typically urban ones like parks and gardens, railway embankments, cemeteries, canals, and wastelands.

David Bevan, who has recently retired from his post as Conservation Officer to the London borough of Haringey, will base his talk on his experience working in this essentially urban borough. Haringey supports many characteristic London habitats, including the Capital’s longest statutory Local Nature Reserve, a former railway line linking Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace. Four fragments of ancient woodland include Coldfall Wood, where an extensive programme of coppicing has recently been undertaken as part of the Capital Woodlands Project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. A small environmental education centre, Railway Fields (once a coal yard), offers the borough’s primary school children an introduction to the natural world (and also houses the remarkable “Haringey knotweed”!).

David has a special interest in the flora of London, and his talk will include many examples of unusual London plants. He will relate his work in Haringey to the wider objectives of the Mayor’s Biodiversity Strategy for London as a whole.

Registration required:

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Free:

Yes