Realising a vision for building biomass and recovering nature …

I’ve got this vision that calls to mind the memory of the massive Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

The huge plume of water vapour that formed billowing clouds above the cooling towers was visible for miles.

The coal-fired power station is now closed.

It blighted the landscape with huge coal piles and emissions of carbon and smoke.

But that vision of vapour clouds lives with me.

We’re living through a biodiversity crisis that sees many formerly-common species in serious decline.

The reasons are complex but their consequences are a lack of food for wildlife.

What we must do, from soil up to the sky is address this lack of food by boosting biodiversity. This biodiversity gain leads to an increase in nature’s treasure - biomass. 

In biology, biomass is the total mass of living organisms in a specific area or ecosystem at a specific time.

The consequence of a lack of soil disturbance, an accumulation of dead wood, of increased wet areas and the variety of native plants and mycology is .. invertebrates.

These invertebrates contribution to a growth of biomass which provides food which increases the vigour of the links in the food chain.

Lesser willow sawfly
(Nematus pavidus) larvae

I see in my minds eye a huge plume of biomass billowing up into the sky on which invertebrates and mammals and birds can feast and flourish.

This cloud forming blankets of invertebrates with others from other localities and on their migratory journeys…

Imagine it..

That’s the vision.