The Government has recently announced that land in England protected for nature will be quadrupled to 30% by the year 2030 as a consequence of 2022’s UN Biodiversity deal. Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth and only 7% of land currently meets the criteria. The Environment Department will trial a pilot scheme in 2024 to persuade landowners to participate in the voluntary scheme. So success depends on take-up.
Looking at projects that pre-date this global initiative then locally, at community level, The John Clare Countryside Project, co-ordinated by the Langdyke Trust, has brought together 21 Parishes to implement schemes to develop a Nature Recovery Project together with interpreting the area’s rich heritage and involving the community, potentially creating jobs and recreational opportunities as well as biodiversity.
Some other schemes that have been realised are re-using redundant industrial sites or re-purposing agricultural land. In one of my previous Notes I wrote about the reserves created from redundant gravel workings in the Nene Valley near Thrapston and identical methods are included in Langdyke’s work round Etton and Maxey.
In late October I was in Northumberland and went birding for the first time to Druridge Bay, south of Amble. Formerly the location of both deep mines and opencast pits there are now several country parks and reserves, mainly managed by Northumberland Wildlife Trust. Looking at the landscape today it is difficult to think that colliery and opencast spoil used to be taken out to sea on conveyor belts and dumped. Similar conversions have been made in the former coalfields in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire and wildlife has returned.
An organisation called Nattergall has purchased a farm at Boothby near Grantham and is well on the way to wilding it. Look up “Boothby Wildland” if you want to visit it. It has also acquired two further sites in Norfolk and Essex. https://www.nattergal.co.uk/boothby-wildland
At Sandilands south of Sutton-on-Sea in Lincolnshire the National Trust is converting a 30 hectare former linear golf-course along the coast into a wetland. It is hoped that this strip of land will act as both a stop-over for spring and autumn migrants and a place for birds to breed.
Another local initiative, but on a more extensive scale, is the Great Fen Project. The Beds, Northants,Cambs Wildlife Trust is re-creating a major wetland landscape over 14 square miles and linking remnants of the original Fens stretching from Holme Fen in the north to beyond Woodwalton Fen in the south. The Trust has acquired several farms and envisions a 50-year timeline before completion.
There are then private initiatives to create wild landscapes on a grand scale. The most famous is the 3500-acre Knepp Estate in Sussex created by Sir Charles (Charlie) Burrell and his wife Isabella Tree. She wrote the best-selling book “Wilding” to describe their aims, methods and progress.
In Norfolk there is Wild Ken Hill near Snettisham which is combining wilding of some land with organic farming and traditional conservation practices in an innovative approach.
Back to the north-east where the Duke of Northumberland’s youngest son, Max Percy, has put the 9500-acre Rothbury Estate up for sale. This has been in the Percy family’s ownership for 700 years.
Various charities, including the Northumberland Wildlife Trust, have bought the first tranche and are trying to raise £30 million in the next two years to acquire the rest. Like Wild Ken Hill, it will combine agriculture with restoration of nature but on a much grander scale.
To get from 7% of eligible land to 30% by 2030 is a herculean task. Let us wish all involved, at whatever scale, every success if we are to restore biodiversity to acceptable levels.
KEITH LIEVESLEY