The Working Wetlands project led by Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT) has this month passed
the £5 million mark for the amount of money it has helped local landowners access in
grants from the government.
The major milestone has been reached after four years of effort in northern Devon
working closely with the landowning community and is thanks to the hard work of the
team's seven farm and wildlife advisors with close support from Natural England.
The advisors have helped farmers to complete applications for schemes such as Higher
Level Stewardship (HLS) which is administered by Natural England and which pays
farmers to manage their holdings for the benefit of wildlife.
Mark Elliott, Working Wetlands Project Manager said: "This is a major milestone for
us and really shows how the local farming community has embraced the project.
Traditional farming practices are absolutely vital for maintaining some of our very
best wet grasslands, which need management to prevent them reverting to scrub.
Fortunately incentives such as HLS and to a lesser extent Entry Level Stewardship
exist to reward those farmers who are adopting sensitive farming practices. This
represents over 2,600 hectares of wildlife rich grassland being brought into
favourable management and is really starting to make headway into recreating a
living landscape on the Culm!"
HLS is a vital mechanism which can help rebuild lost landscapes such as Culm
grassland which has 95% of its area disappear in the past century. As well as annual
payments for management, these schemes also include money for fencing and
hedge-laying.
The Natural England Team Leader for North Devon, Nik Ward, commented that "the
partnership working between Natural England and Devon Wildlife Trust is a great
example of how conservation effort can be focused to target funding towards land
owners with good quality habitats so that they are managed and maintained for future
generations to enjoy."
Mark added: "Farmers in this area are already struggling to produce cheaper food for
the supermarkets, often on very difficult wet ground. As a society we are also
increasingly asking them to provide other services such as clean water into our
rivers and reservoirs, and a landscape rich in wildlife. Schemes such as this are
vital to pay farmers for providing these other benefits.
We hope our advisory work will continue for many years to come. Anyone interested
in receiving advice or getting involved in the Working Wetlands project should call
01409 221823 or email working.wetlands@devonwildlifetrust.org
Working Wetlands advisors are employed by DWT, with funding from a number of
sources. One of these is the South West Water "Upstream Thinking " programme which
aims to support farmers who are looking after the water draining off their land into
rivers and reservoirs downstream .
Working Wetlands has also been supported by Tubney Charitable Trust, The Environment
Agency, Devon County Council, Devon Waste Management, GrantScape and Natural
England.
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| Working Wetlands Team |
