The project has been generously supported by: Suffolk County Council, English Nature, Suffolk Coastal District Council, Forest Heath District Council, St Edmundsbury Borough Council, Environment Agency, Suffolk Naturalists' Society, Suffolk Wildlife Trust
The Project was a little slow in getting started as it had to wait for finances to reach the IBC coffers before it could start spending. This meant that roughly half the 1997/8 budget (c. £7000) was carried over to be spent in 1998/99.
So far the Project has received some £26,000 with another £1000 worth of sponsorship 'in kind' from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
Much of the work of the Project involves computerisation of data. In January 1999 the computer databases at SBRC reached 500,000 records. With the increased rate of inputting as software (and inputters!) improves we should be well on the way to 1 million by the end of the Project. Contracts with temporary staff both on (Dan Sanford) and off (Paul Lee) site have been set up to do much of this work. We have also benefited from a trainee worker, Reg Clarke from Suffolk Employment Training, who has been able to take some inputting and processing work as part of his training.
With the improvement of the Recorder program to allow transfer of data between different copies of the program it is now possible to increase the number of off-site workers. Recently Sue Stone has been set up with a copy of the program and is starting on inputting flora records at home. There is a considerable input of time from SBRC required to train and support these new workers, but it will greatly speed up the processing of the vast backlog of data waiting to be processed.
So far the Project has added about 175,000 records to the computer database. Inputting has concentrated on priority groups such as the Biodiversity Action Plan species. Many records have been added as a result of recent and ongoing surveys on Otters, Water Voles and Stag Beetles. We have also brought up-to-date the information on reptiles and amphibians. New links with the national 'Froglife' project may mean we can receive new records from the surveys of Great Crested Newts and Adders that are being co-ordinated by the Suffolk Amphibian and Reptile Group (SARG).
Many of the new records are from post-1980 species lists for sites in the County, particularly phase II surveys of County Wildlife Sites. We have computerised over 30,000 records produced by Chris Hitch as part of the Suffolk Lichen Survey and are now able to produce a new Suffolk-based 'tick' card to continue this work. We have also been able to import data from other Recorder users in the County. Jon Nicholls (SNS Moth Recorder) has been provided with a copy of Recorder and has input over 10,000 records so far. His co-recorder Tony Prichard also uses Recorder and has some 30,000 records on his database. Once problems of compatibility between Tony's version and the SBRC have been resolved these records will be added to the database.
A large amount of new data has been received from SWT. As part of their contribution 'in kind' they have a volunteer copying new records from their site files for SBRC. We have also been working on copying information on SSSI from English Nature files at Bury.
Information about the SBRC and the Suffolk Biodiversity 2000 Project is now available on the internet. There is scope for expansion in this area but it needs to be balanced against potential use. At the moment this is quite low with about 500 visitors to the site since it was set up. However, as the site gets better known with more sites setting up links to it the rate of use will increase. The SBRC links page is gathering information on other sites which provide relevant information such as the SCC Biodiversity pages.
Email facilities have already started to be used to receive and answer enquiries. This has enabled very rapid response to some enquiries.
There has been considerable interest in the Project from Press and Radio. Presentations on the Project have been given to the SNS Recorder's Meeting, the Local Authority Countryside Forum and the Friends of Ipswich Museum. Displays about the project have been shown in Ipswich Museum, at the Suffolk Show and at the SNS annual conferences.
Most Short list species have data computerised (see maps in current Action Plans)
There have been major new additions to our knowledge on Otters, Water Voles and Stag Beetles as result of new survey work.
We are gathering and computerising data on Middle list species. Some species are already well-covered e.g. most plants, Black Poplar, Adder and Water Shrew; others such as Beetles and Moths are much more difficult.
As new inputters get started a greater volume of site-based data will be computerised in 1998/9. There will be further expansion of Web site to encourage greater use of the information, and get feedback from users of the service.
The new version of Recorder should be launched which will be Windows-based. This will enable greater transfer of data between different recording software. A GIS interface will be included so that links with all sorts of map-based information will be possible.
Progress on the National Biodiversity Network will mean that 'meta-data' on the information held at SBRC will be available nation-wide through the internet.
Martin Sanford