Wildlife booster: Six year project aims to create ‘new wood pasture’
Hearing skylarks, nightingales and woodlarks is a key part of rural life in Britain. For many ramblers, it’s part of the joy found in an afternoon stroll.
Well, a project is now underway to amplify nature’s chorus across Purbeck in Dorset. The goal is to restore key areas of wood pasture which are often a prime habitat for our much-loved, native songbirds.
The National Trust cares for more than 8,500 acres of land across Purbeck and aims to support its tenant farmers in achieving the goal of planting 60,000 trees over the course of the next six years.
The area is seen as one of the UK’s most biodiverse habitats as its wood pasture provides important nesting, roosting and foraging sites for a wide variety of wildlife while also serving as sheltered grazing pasture for livestock.
The vicinity includes birds such as the yellowhammer, linnet and goldfinch, as well as the extremely rare turtle dove and nightingale.
‘We haven’t yet lost Purbeck’s soundscape, but over the last 70 years its volume has quietened, with some birds – and their respective birdsong – disappearing altogether,’ says Ben Cooke, Area Ranger for the National Trust at Purbeck.
‘By restoring wood pasture, we want to reverse this trend and bring back a cacophony of birdsong and the hum of insects across Purbeck.’
‘Imagine how fantastic it would be if the calls of currently absent species such as the turtle dove, can be attracted to return, to became part of our lives again.’
A yellowhammer is one of the species expected to benefit from the work. Image: Derek Hatton / National Trust Images.
Supporting farm initiatives to benefit the community
Wood pasture creation is one of the habitat restoration projects being funded by the government’s Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs).
The payment schemes focus on supporting farming initiatives that provide a wide range of public benefits, such as soil health, climate change adaptation, increased biodiversity and access for people.
‘This is a really exciting time. I came into farming around 40 years ago because I had a real interest in the outdoors and nature,’ explains Paul Loudoun, a National Trust tenant farmer.
He’s working with the charity on the project on the 200 hectare Wilkswood Farm, in Langton Matravers, Purbeck.
‘But my focus for many years was more on the intensive grazing of sheep and cattle. The new government payments have enabled me to take on a range of nature restoration projects, while still running a viable business.’
‘The payments have also helped me to set up a sustainable way of managing an organic beef herd.’
‘The cattle are completely pasture fed, live outdoors all year and calve in the fields. It’s a simple, natural system, and much more economical than having to buy feeds and fertilisers.’
‘This way, I can supply the local economy with meat, while creating a place where nature can thrive.’
National Trust tenant farmer Paul Loudoun is creating new wood pasture on Wilkswood Farm, Purbeck. Image: James Back / National Trust Images.
The National Trust says the project comes at an important time, as native birds across the UK have been facing increasing challenges over recent years, with woodland bird numbers showing a long-term decline of 27 per cent since the early 1970s.
The charity says the reduction in numbers is due to the intensification of agriculture, habitat loss and the use of pesticides.
It adds that some specialist farmland species, including the turtle dove, are among the UK’s fastest declining birds.
‘Working with our tenant farmers will be vital to meeting our new ambitious goal to restore nature everywhere,’ explains Richard Wheeldon, Senior National Consultant for Farming Systems at the National Trust.
‘Managing habitats to benefit both our farming community and nature is what is needed to help tackle the catastrophic decline of UK nature and to return our landscapes to health.’
‘Projects like this one at Purbeck are a fantastic example of what we can achieve when we work together.’
‘Wood pasture is not only very important to farming, but has also always held great cultural significance due to the intensive use that people made of the landscape.’
‘By restoring these habitats that have been lost, nature and people will both get the chance to thrive – and we will be able to enjoy birdsong as well as high quality food for years to come.’
‘Our new ambitious goal to restore nature everywhere’
Wood pasture, typified by landscapes which are today most commonly associated with the New Forest, benefits wildlife because of its mix of habitats, made up of a mosaic of grassland, scrub, hedges and trees.
The open ground and grassland encourage an abundance of wildflowers and insects, scrub islands provide shelter and food for birds, insects and small mammals, while trees are especially attractive to bats, birds and lichens.
‘Together these interconnected habitats will create a landscape that’s teeming with the sights, sounds and scents of nature.’
‘It will be a place where people can immerse themselves in the natural world, and hopefully inspire them to create similar habitats in their own gardens, schools or parks.’
‘Rotavating the land may look drastic at first, but the new vegetation will soon take hold, whether through species such as bramble, hawthorn and blackthorn which have been planted or regenerated naturally.’
‘We are also experimenting with ways to protect saplings from grazing animals, especially deer, which not only eat the new growth but can jump high fences to get to it.’
In some areas, this involves using protective layers of thorny gorse, bramble and hawthorn, or piles of dead branches. In others, deer-proof exclosures have been erected.
‘We’ll be checking to establish which methods work to protect the newly planted shrubs and saplings, as well as monitoring wildlife species each year to see if numbers are increasing. Hopefully the results will be dramatic – and we’ll hear nature singing out loud again!’
Teaching about food production and wildlife
Some of the seeds used to grow trees and shrubs for the project were collected on-site with the help of local community groups and schools.
After harvesting the seeds, the Trust and the tenant farmers have rotavated small plots of land to create bare ground where the saplings and shrubs can grow.
‘Farming with nature in mind like this means we can expect to see more wildlife return over time, which is very exciting,’ says Jake Hancock, National Trust tenant farmer on a 320 acre farm at Middlebere on the Purbeck Heaths.
‘As the project progresses, we will also be able to take school children and other interest groups to see the farm regularly to teach them about food production and wildlife and inspire them about the work we are doing.’
‘It’s great that work like this is made possible with the direct support of Government schemes such as Countryside Stewardship.’
‘Though we know budgets are tight at this current time, it is critical that this support continues to develop, both nationally and locally.’