As some surveyors may be aware, the National Plant Monitoring Scheme website makes use of the "indicia" infrastructure for biological recording, as do most of the Biological Records Centre-supported national recording schemes. This allows us to make use of functionality developed elsewhere; for example, within the popular iRecord site for general, ad hoc, biological recording.

This is to announce that we have updated the Privacy Notice for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme. The changes relate to (i) a questionnaire on scheme accessibility and (ii) the use of Mailchimp for emails

Follow this link to read the new Notice: https://www.npms.org.uk/privacy-policy

See also our Data Access Policy for more information: https://www.npms.org.uk/content/data-access-policy-public

Excited to announce that we now have our programme of live Training Webinar events available for registration, please click here to register. This year we have covered all the NPMS habitats, including Coastal, Freshwater, Arable Field Margins and more specific grassland habitat training. We will also be running our essential training on Methodology, Data, the App and the Website. Please note that after attending a training webinar it will not appear on your training history on the website.

Today the Defra/JNCC UK Biodiversity Indicators are published, providing an annual view of how a variety of groups of wildlife, and other indicators of action for biodiversity conservation, have fared across the UK in recent years. The 2020 launch includes something extra special for National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) volunteers, because it marks the first ever contribution of NPMS data to a national biodiversity indicator!

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, NPMS surveys had been disrupted with partial suspension for the first half of the season.

However, now with travel restrictions lifted in Wales and Scotland and surveys in N. Ireland able to resume from July, we are pleased to say that all volunteers nationwide can now continue to survey, so long as they follow all government guidance in their geographic region and local area regarding outdoor activities and travel.