Page 43 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #11

CHURCHYARD WILDLIFE

God’s

ACRE

Protected,undisturbedandoten

ancient,churchyardsarevaluable

refugesthatcanbewindowsinto

centuries-oldlandscapes.

By Stefan Buczacki

FROM BBC RADIO 4’S
LIVING WORLD SERIES
sk anyone with more than
a passing interest in our
natural history to name
the most significant places
for the conservation of our
country’s biodiversity, and
A the answers will probably
include wetlands, ancient woodlands, heaths,
unimproved grasslands – and possibly the
seashore and sand dunes. It is highly unlikely
they will include churchyards, yet for their
overall species richness and conservation
value these can rival almost anywhere.
Although most people will be familiar with
the location and size of their local churchyard,
whether in rural village or inner-city parish, it
is only when we realise the Church of England
alone has around 10,000 of them that their
potential as important habitats may begin to be
appreciated. Their total area has been reckoned
to approach that of a small national park, and to
this can be added the land occupied by the burial
grounds of other Christian denominations as
well as urban cemeteries and the graveyards of Night and day:
the Jewish and Muslim faiths. bats such as
There are three principal and related features this pipistrelle
(above) use
that confer churchyards with such wildlife
churches for
interest: the fact that they are associated with roosting and
church buildings that could be over a thousand churchyards for
years old; that thanks to ancient canon law, they foraging; city
must be enclosed; and that because of their role graveyards (left)
ofer tranquil
as resting sites for the dead, they are places of
green oases for
sanctity. It is also relevant that a large proportion foxes and other
of churchyards have been closed to further urban wildlife.

November 2018 BBC Wildlife 43