A report about the state of Manchester’s biodiversity is now available. The report, written by Dave Bishop, chair of “Friends of Chorlton Meadows” was launched last week at the “Beyond the Carbon Budget” event hosted by Manchester Climate Monthly.

The report, which begins with a quote by Jared Diamond –

“Elimination of lots of lousy little species regularly causes big harmful consequences for humans, just as does randomly knocking out many of the lousy little rivets holding together an airplane”

looks at the current state of  biodiversity in Manchester and Greater Manchester and declares it to be “in a poor state and deteriorating annually. The destruction of wildlife, and wildlife rich sites, in this region, over the past few decades, has been shocking and depressing.”

You can read the whole thing here, or you can download the 16-page shortened version here.

A video of Dave’s well-received speech at the event, filmed in WonkyCam, will appear shortly. [Update: here it is!]