Charity puts £1m into nature recovery work

AN Oxfordshire charity has given more than £1million to nature recovery projects in the county in the last year.

The Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment has mostly funded projects on farms and estates close to existing wildlife sites.

Much of the charity’s work has been funded through biodiversity net gain, a new policy through which developers can pay to offset biodiversity lost as a result of housing and commercial developments.

A project to create a new meadow on the Elvendon Estate near Goring is one of the first to be supported through this policy by TOE.

The estate, a mixture of arable land, permanent grassland and ancient semi-natural woodland, is within the Chilterns Area of Natural Beauty and adjacent to an existing wildlife site.

Lucy Shaw, Elvendon’s estate manager, said: “Our aspiration is to improve and enhance the overall biodiversity of the estate for wildflowers, wild grasses and other plants and also all the animal, microbial and other species.

“This project has enabled us to put in place a more traditional grassland management regime which will be hugely beneficial for nature.

“Funding will cover all the costs of preparing the grassland to create a lowland meadow from what was poor quality modified grassland.”

The charity has supported more than 390 projects since it was founded in 2011.

It aims to support new nature recovery projects in the coming years by working alongside partners including the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust and landowners.

Chief executive Ben Heaven Taylor said: “I’ve lived in Oxfordshire all my life and I’ve witnessed first-hand what has happened to our wildlife.

“Yet I have also seen how concerted action by local people and conservation organisations can turn things around. It’s not too late.

“I’m proud that we’ve been able to use biodiversity net gain funding to support our partners’ efforts to take steps to restore the nature we have lost.

“We have a long way to go but by working together, we can create new spaces for nature to recover and to thrive into the future.”