Thanks to Peter for sharing this latest news from the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. Ed
Competition was tight for the “Re-building Biodiversity” grant from local landfill tax provider Biffaward, and the Wildlife Trust is delighted to have won this award.
Restoring habitats for wildlife
Located near Sandown Water works and Sandown and Shanklin golf course, the 18ha reserve is an attractive mix of riverside pasture, hedgerow, reed bed and ditches.
Over the next two years the Wildlife Trust aims to use the grant to restore habitats for water vole, fish, amphibians, wetland flowers and plants such as the attractive Marsh cinquefoil as well as create ideal conditions for bees, dragonflies and damselflies.
Work has begun
Wildlife Trust and Green Army volunteers from Natural Wight have already started to remove barbed wire fences from the ditches and cut back willows on an old pond site.
One of the first tasks is to open up the river by coppicing, pollarding and bringing the willows along the banks back into management. Crucially this will allow more light to reach the river channel and banks so that grasses, flowers and sedges can grow along the edges.
As well as helping to stabilise the river banks, these plants provide food for water voles and nectar for pollinators. Other important wildlife fen sites will also be restored in the Eastern Yar valley.
A much needed boost
Nicola Wheeler, ponds and wetlands Project officer on the Isle of Wight said:
“These funds will give a much needed boost to our work in the Upper Eastern Yar Living Landscape which aims to restore and connect floodplain habitats through the valley.
“The work will not increase the risk of flooding and some of the plans, such as pond restoration and removal of Parrot’s feather (a problem non-native invasive plant) from ditches, could help with water storage in the floodplain.”
If you would like to know more about the work at Sandown Meadows please contact [email protected]
Image: Green Army volunteers, Aaron Hammond and Ross Cosgrove
