A consultation into a University-backed campaign for the natural environment around Brighton to be protected as a biosphere reserve has been extended by a month after a Sussex council backed the bid.

Adur District Council has joined the University of Sussex and 18 other organisations in the Brighton & Hove and Lewes Downs Biosphere Partnership, which is calling for Brighton’s natural environment to be recognised as a UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Biosphere Reserve.

As a result, people are being given more time to have their say by filling in a short questionnaire on the partnership’s ‘HERE HERE’ campaign website. The consultation will now run until 22 May.

The partnership is carrying out the consultation exercise in order to gather supporting evidence ahead of the bid later this year.

Staff and students at Sussex are being encouraged to support the campaign.

There are currently 610 Biosphere Reserves spanning 117 countries including areas as diverse as the Amazon rain forest, Canary islands, and city surrounds of Paris, Cape Town and Sao Paolo. In the UK there are six Biosphere Reserves.

The application for Brighton & Hove and Lewes Downs will be submitted in September this year, with UNESCO’s decision due in July 2014.

For more information about the campaign, go to the ‘HERE HERE’ website.

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