A study in the Journal of Applied Ecology says that there is enough land in the UK for non-food biofuels. The abstract, which is copied on envirolation.org says that there is 3.1m Ha of acceptable land in the UK, that’s land that isn’t of great ecological importance
“suggesting the UK government target of 1·1 million ha by 2020 is feasible.”
The other interesting news from this is that butterflies might do rather well out of Miscanthus and Willow plantations.
Butterfly abundance proved the most appropriate indicator, [of biodiversity] and it wasfound that total abundance was greater in field margins of both willowand Miscanthus biomass crops than in arable field margins.
Though the abstract didn’t talk much about species and seemed to be more interested in the number of butterflies… I think some lepidoptra are quite specialised in terms of habitat and food.