Geodiversity is a term used to describe the variety of rocks, fossils, minerals, natural processes, landforms and soils that underlie and determine the natural character of our landscape and environment. Geodiversity underpins biodiversity, and through the use of rocks for building, and as industrial raw materials has directly influenced our culture and economy.

The English Geodiversity Forum

Geodiversity is an important, yet often overlooked, environmental asset. For this reason the English Geodiversity Forum was established to raise the profile of, and support for, England’s geodiversity.

It aims to achieve this through:

• Encouraging ‘action’ for geodiversity through the Geodiversity Charter for England launched in October, 2014
• Promoting and sharing good geoconservation practice
• Raising awareness and understanding of geodiversity
• Advocating policy inclusion of geodiversity at all levels.

Geodiversity issues:

Although, it is a widely held popular view that geological features are ‘permanent’ and are not in need of the level of conservation afforded to biodiversity, in 1996, as part of the Natural Area’s Project, English Nature (now Natural England) identified a range of threats to the area’s geodiversity, which included:

• the loss of limestone pavement
• damage to the underground cave systems through both internal and external activities
• the loss of quarry exposures through landfill, and
• degradation of sites due to vegetation growth and natural processes.