The Wildlife Trusts are working to transform the environment we live in:
restoring, recreating and reconnecting wildlife-rich spaces in rural and urban areas by working in partnership with local communities, landowners, schools and businesses.
We want wildlife to thrive, to disperse and re-colonise our landscape so future generations can encounter, experience and enjoy our natural heritage. And so that we can too.
So what is being done? and how are Wildlife Trusts resources being used?
Some examples of this work can be found below
Working Wetlands: Restoring a Living Landcape in the Culm
This project aims to restore robust wetland ecosystems to over 65,000 hectares of land in the Culm area of North Devon. This is equivalent to an area the size of over 60,000 football pitches!
The short-term aim is to restore 2040 hectares of Culm grassland habitats to a good condition by 2015 and ensure that over 100 hectares of wildlife-rich grassland is reconnected to current sites to create a single large wildlife site.
A targeted programme of works has occurred over 5 adjacent farms. Existing wildlife rich habitats have been restored through scrub management and the restoration of sympathetic grazing regimes including the ‘flying herd’ grazing service. 53 hectares of Sitka spruce has been felled on three sites and land has been prepared to enable the restoration of Culm grassland.
Early results have been very encouraging with regenerating swards dominated by purple moor-grass and herbs and sedges. In addition over 20 hectares of green hay sowing operations have taken place that has restored habitats in key strategic locations.
Techniques such as soil stripping, deep ploughing, over-sowing and green hay sowing have proven to be successful habitat restoration techniques on over 50 hectares of land.
Afferton moor landscape represents a small proportion (10%) of the Knowstone and Witheridge priority area (25,000 hectares).
A maximum size football pitch is 120 x 90 metres. This is an area of 10 800 square metres; one hectare is 10 000 square metres. So a full size pitch could be 1.08 ha.
The Beaminster Landscape HLS Scheme
The sites involved in this project are important and form vital core areas of habitat that contribute to landscape-scale conservation work. When linked, the sites demonstrate a greater value.
The project itself was created because of concerns that sensitive sites were coming under threat due to their very nature, character, size and the fact they were individual holdings.
Aims of the project include:
- Create grassland linking areas between existing grassland areas to allow movement of species between fragments.
- Create, maintain or retain new areas of grassland to either create species-rich grassland or create functional grassland.
- Create grassland buffer areas around and between existing grassland fragments to provide further protection from adjacent adverse land uses.
- Protect/enhance management of existing unimproved grassland fragments and their associated habitats.
- Restore semi-improved grasslands to unimproved status through support to changes in the management of these grasslands.
Initial progress has been encouraging with twelve of the small holdings now covered by agreements. These small holdings cover a total area of 717 hectares, with just under 150 hectares of it being biodiversity priority habitat that is now under positive management through the agreements.