Biodiversity in the Peak District

At a national level, within the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, certain habitats and species have been identified as being of particular conservation importance.

A number of these habitats and species were also identified as being important to the Peak District. These form the Peak District Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP).

Wildlife doesn't respect administrative boundaries, and neither does the Peak District BAP area. The BAP doesn't follow the National Park boundary (the light green area on the map), instead it more or less follows the boundaries of three Natural Areas (the red dotted lines on the map).

They are:

• the Dark Peak - characterised by extensive areas of moorland
• the White Peak - with its rolling limestone plateau and dales
• the South West Peak - similar to the Dark Peak but with a more complicated mosaic of habitats and more extensive areas of farmland.

This means that the Biodiversity Action Plan covers the National Park part of Derbyshire, and parts of Kirklees, Barnsley, Sheffield, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester. The total BAP area is approximately 1851 km² (185,100 hectares).