In 2008, Derry City Council commissioned a Biodiversity Awareness Survey to establish the baseline of biodiversity awareness in the area. The survey was repeated in 2010 and 2012, to meet Derry’s Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) objective, to conduct Biodiversity Awareness Surveys every two years.
The survey results show that 85% of respondents were aware of the term ‘biodiversity’ and 80% understood the term, compared to 68% and 38% respectively in 2010. As a result, Council has attained the Northern Ireland Biodiversity Strategy’s target level that 33% of the public are aware of and understand the term ‘biodiversity’. The majority of respondents (82%) were aware of media communications relating to biodiversity, in comparison with 31% in 2008 and 69% in 2010. This highlights the success of the LBAP’s objective to, ‘increase the number of biodiversity stories in the local media’. Two thirds of respondents were aware of a local priority species or habitat and 78% could identify an invasive alien species, which highlights the success of the LBAP’s aim, ‘to conserve priority habitats and species’ and the objective to, ‘raise awareness of invasive alien species’. This highlights the success of the co-ordinated campaign, to raise awareness of priority habitats, priority species and invasive alien species.
