Rotherham Biological Records Centre

Rotherham Biological Record Centre (RBRC), was created in the late 1980s to collect and manage information relating to the wildlife, sites and habitats present within the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham and is hosted by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.

It was one of three pioneer record centres that worked closely with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) to trial the now widely adopted Recorder biological recording software. Recorder has subsequently been developed and refined to become the ‘industry standard’ software for biological recording, used by records centres, recording schemes and individual naturalists across the UK and beyond.

Since its inception, RBRC has amassed in excess of 1.8 million records, contributed largely by local naturalists and specialist recording groups, but also by RMBC employees, consultant ecologists and by trawling through historical documents and publications relating to the Borough. Over the years, the efforts of many skilled naturalists have resulted in well over 10,000 species, subspecies and hybrid plants and animals being recorded in Rotherham. This equates to about 25% of the UK total, excluding marine and unicellular organisms, in 0.01% of the UK land area! The Recorder database also provided the basis for assessment leading to the designation of Rotherham’s extensive network of Local Wildlife Sites.