Our Vision

Our Vision 2015 – 2020

A plan for protecting nature and inspiring people across the West of England

‘We need a step-change in our approach to wildlife conservation, from trying to hang on to what we have, to one of large-scale habitat restoration and recreation, underpinned by the reestablishment of ecological processes and ecosystem services, for the benefits of both people and wildlife.’

Sir John Lawton, Making Space for Nature1

Reversing the decline in biodiversity is a huge challenge, given the scale and pace of loss of nature and wild spaces. – even more so for our region, which has one of the fastest-growing human populations in the UK – with all the development pressures that brings 2. Despite all the conservation efforts over the past 35 years, the recent State of Nature report 3, a stock-take of how UK biodiversity is faring, found that 60% of all wildlife species are in decline.

Notwithstanding the scale of the problem, safeguarding our natural environment is a challenge we must meet. As well as having its own intrinsic value, nature provides us with everything we need for our own survival, wellbeing and economic prosperity. This is why the Wildlife Trusts, like other conservation organisations, are stepping up our response and adopting new ways of working to increase our impact.

Contents 1

Our Vision

2

The Wildlife and Special Places We Are Working to Protect

3

The Value of Nature – Why Protecting Nature Benefits Us

4

The National Context, Our Local Challenge

5

Our Response – Making Connections at the Landscape Scale

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Long-term Goals, Priority Areas and Outcomes

1

Our vision

Our vision is to enable Nature to ‘recover on a grand scale’ 4, and over the next five years we will begin to put that into practice by working at a landscape scale in five key areas that offer the best opportunities for creating ‘resilient ecological networks’ for nature across the West of England. We will work to reverse the decline in wildlife by looking after and improving our existing key wildlife sites; increasing space for nature by securing new sites; working with landowners to build biodiversity into their businesses; and identifying where we can thread wildlife corridors through our cities and towns.

and immediate environment, and the local and regional economies that provide their jobs and livelihoods. With more than 85% of the UK population living in urban areas, it’s essential to persuade city dwellers of the relevance of our work and of nature’s value to their everyday lives. As part of our contribution to Bristol Green Capital 2015, we intend to inspire people street-by-street and across the shared spaces of estates and community land to view their gardens and patches of land as collective, connected landscape-scale urban habitat, rather than closedborder enclaves.

We will also increase the impact of our work by working more closely with our partners to join up our efforts and ambition. The West of England Nature Partnership (WENP), in which the Trust plays a leading role, enables us to embed the value of nature in local economic and planning processes, working closely with the local authorities, the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and Health and Wellbeing Boards to influence decision-making. We will also continue to work closely across the UK with our partner Wildlife Trusts on issues of joint interest and national significance.

Nature not only provides our everyday needs but is also important for our mental health. Research shows that just five minutes spent in nature can improve people’s sense of self-esteem and mood5.

In 2016, we will launch a new ‘Natural Health and Wellbeing’ programme offering time out in nature to people needing a boost to their physical or mental wellbeing.

Our vision is not just about reversing the decline in biodiversity, it is also about inspiring and empowering people, benefiting their communities

We know that our vision will take longer than five years to achieve, but this document focuses on the goals until 2020. We recognise that there is also a considerable financial challenge. That is why this strategy will be underpinned by a business plan with measurable targets.

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The Wildlife and Special Places We Are Working to Protect

40 staff,

supported by over

17,000 members Formerly the County of Avon, now defined as the West of England (Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire), our area is ecologically exceptionally diverse for its size (514 square miles/1,332 square kilometres).

The region’s varied geology results in the occurrence of a wide range of habitats, from the species-rich calcareous grasslands of the Cotswold and Mendip Hills and the ancient woodlands of the ridges, steep slopes and scarp faces, to the network of rhynes of the Levels and Moors and the coastal saltmarshes of the Severn Estuary.

The Avon Biodiversity Action Plan 6 documented 28 priority habitats in Avon (out of a total of 65) and 47 priority species (out of a total of 1149), including dormice, water voles, white-clawed crayfish, otters, barn owls and horseshoe bats.

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Otters are recovering across much of Avon, and polecats are also making a recovery, spreading south from Gloucestershire.

There are a significant number of butterfly species, including brown hairstreak, chalkhill blue and various fritillaries.

Rare plant species include round-headed leek (Bristol onion), Bristol rock-cress, Bristol whitebeam and nationally notable plants such as lizard orchid, adder’s-tongue spearwort (found in only two sites in the UK) and Bath asparagus.

Avon contains numerous designated and legally protected wildlife and geological areas, including 86 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and the Gordano Valley and Leigh Woods National Nature Reserves (NNRs). SSSIs of European significance include: Chew Valley Lake Special Protection Area (SPA) for birds; Uphill Cliff for limestone grassland; Brockley Hall Stables and Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines, both of which form parts of a Special Area for Conservation (SAC) for bats, and the Avon Gorge Woodlands SAC. The Severn Estuary, with its tributaries, is an especially important wetland, comprising SSSI, SPA, SAC and Ramsar (wetland of international importance) areas.

Many other wildlife or geological sites are recognised as of local importance and are protected from development as local-authority-designated Local Wildlife Sites. Avon also holds parts of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) in the Cotswolds and the Mendip Hills. Other sites are designated as Local Nature Reserves (LNRs).

and more than

800

volunteers £401,000

800 volunteers’ input equated to of time. The value of volunteer input into reserves alone was £288,000.

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Our wildflower-grassland restoration work has surveyed land on 178 farms since 2008 and provided advice and practical help to support the management and restoration of 200 hectares. The team has helped landowners secure 12 Higher Level Stewardship payments, worth a total of £762,474

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In the Cotswolds and Chew Valley over the past two years, our Grasslands Restoration Team has carried out 426 volunteer days on 23 farms, contributing to the restoration of 93 ha of grasslands

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The North Somerset Wetland Programme has worked with 59 landowners since 2011 to assess the condition of the wetland system across the North Somerset Levels and Moors.

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The Value of Nature – Why Protecting Nature Benefits Us

The natural world and its ecosystems are central to our wellbeing and economic prosperity. Our environment plays a critical role in our lives, providing food, water and air that are essential for life, as well as the raw materials that underpin our economy.

Nature also provides us with the processes (ecosystem services) that purify our water and air, as well as giving us the space for our recreation, wellbeing and culture. The beauty of our natural environment attracts people to live and work in our region, and

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businesses to invest here.

Yet the environment is consistently undervalued in conventional economic analyses and decisionmaking, as the true value of these ecosystem services are often hidden, overlooked or taken for granted. With our environment under ever-growing pressure both from a rising population and increasing consumption, this characterisation of ‘nature’s machinery’ working to the benefit of our society and economy is crucial for persuading the public and policy-makers of the relevance of AWT and its mission.

5

Our Response – Making Connections at the Landscape Scale

The UK National Ecosystem Assessment 7 estimated that UK wetlands alone provide services worth over £1 billion annually – with some estimates as high as £5 billion when all wider amenity values were taken into account (equivalent to £100–£200 of benefits for each household annually).

The same study calculated that the health benefits of just living close to a green space were worth up to £300 per person per year.

The National Context, Our Local Challenge

Despite decades of effort and many local and specific successes, our UK wildlife and natural ecosystems have been declining on a significant scale.

The Government’s UK National Ecosystem Assessment 7 showed that: •

nature is consistently undervalued in decisionmaking and that many of the services we get from nature are in decline.

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more than 40% of priority habitats and 30% of priority species were declining.

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30% of the ecosystems we depend on for providing clean drinking water, helping curb floods and locking away climate-changing carbon dioxide are under stress.

England Biodiversity 2020 targets 8, set by Defra include:

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90% of priority habitats in favourable or recovering condition and at least 50% of SSSIs in favourable condition.

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More, bigger and less fragmented areas for wildlife, with no net loss of priority habitat and an increase in the overall extent of priority habitats by at least 200,000 ha.

This national context, along with the continuing challenges of climate change, population growth and associated development pressures, are reflected locally: Bristol, the eighth largest city in England, is projected to expand by a further 50,000 people by 2021 – with all the infrastructure impacts consequent on that growth 2.

It is not AWT’s remit to challenge population or economic growth per se, but rather to champion nature as a critical factor for achieving truly sustainable development.

Faced by the continued dramatic overall decline in biodiversity as recorded in the State of Nature 3 and these landscape-scale human development pressures, we need a step-change from traditional conservation methods focused on protecting single sites or species.

An independent review of England’s wildlife sites and ecological networks, chaired by Professor Sir John Lawton, provides the policy context and supporting rationale for such a step-change. The review’s report, Making Space for Nature, published in 20101, concluded that England’s wildlife areas do not comprise a coherent and resilient ecological network capable of coping with the challenge of climate-change and other pressures and summarised what needed to be done as ‘More, bigger, better and joined’.

Lawton’s recommended approach fits with our own and has a natural logic: “The idea of joining together existing sites by creating totally new linear corridors across an inhospitable landscape has intuitive appeal.”

AWT has been working to deliver such landscapescale conservation since 2008 but recognises the need to redouble our efforts, seizing the opportunity that Lawton’s analysis provides – as current, accepted government policy – for communicating to the public, politicians and the media what we are doing and why, and that it is consistent with the scientific consensus.

Our

Wild Schools programme delivers outdoor learning to more than

10,000

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Long-term Goals, Priority Areas and Outcomes

Our long-term goals are to:

schoolchildren each year

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Our wildlife-friendly community-growing project ‘Feed Bristol’ has, in just two years, achieved more than 23,000 people engagements More than 5,000 people from vulnerable groups and deprived areas across Bristol, Bath and Weston-superMare connected to nature through our Communities and Nature programme, and 80% of those participating reported improved physical health and mental wellbeing.

Goal 1

Goal 3

Create ecological networks through landscape-scale habitat management and enhancement

Champion the value of nature

Goal 2

Goal 4

Inspire people and communities to care for nature

Underpin delivery with a robust and long-term business plan

Over the next 5 years and beyond we will deliver our goals at two levels. First, we will focus most of our effort within 5 landscape-scale areas prioritised for their conservation need and their potential for community engagement. Each area also offers valuable ‘ecosystem services’, such as the provision of clean drinking water, flood alleviation, absorption of greenhouse gases, pollination services and health and wellbeing.

Our five priority areas are:

Second, we will continue to deliver elements of generic work at an Avon-wide scale, such as reserve management and education, and in particular areas such as Bristol, using the legacy of Bristol Green Capital 2015.

1. Gordano Valley and ridges 2. Avon Gorge and Downs 3. North Somerset Levels 4. Cotswolds 5. Chew Valley

Our Five Priority Areas

Cotswolds – the city of

Bath and its surrounding countryside offer us great opportunities for enabling communities to act for wildlife and to safeguard the unique character of its grassland habitat.

Avon Gorge – Bennett’s Patch and White’s Paddock – ‘a

people’s nature reserve’, engaging local volunteers in creating a demonstration site for species-rich grassland habitat creation.

Gordano Valley – our

Portbury Wharf reserve provides a critical link through from the Severn to the Valley’s wetlands.

We will continue to work to restore grazing marsh and ditches for breeding wader populations.

Wildlife we are working to protect: Dormice, water voles, otters, white-clawed crayfish, barn owls, horseshoe bats.

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Butterflies including brown hairstreak, chalkhill blue and various species of fritillary.

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Rare plant species including nationally notable plants such as lizard orchid, adder’s-tongue spearwort (found in only two sites in the UK) and Bath asparagus.

North Somerset Levels – we will continue

White-clawed crayfish

Small pearl-bordered fritillary

Bath asparagus

STEVE NICHOLLS

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to work with landowners to restore the ditch system and their related wildlife habitats, to buffer and connect existing areas important for wildlife.

Chew Valley – we will

be part of pioneering work in this river catchment area to explore alternative land uses that deal with flooding and water quality issues. We will continue our outstanding education work at the Folly Farm Centre.

Goal 1 Create ecological networks through landscape-scale habitat management and enhancement Over the next five years and beyond, underpinned by Lawton’s analysis and recommendations, we will create coherent and resilient ecological networks at a landscape scale for people and wildlife so that threatened species can flourish and degraded ecosystems can be restored. In each of these priority areas we will deliver five practical actions (following Lawton’s principles of ‘more, bigger, better and joined’): •

Maintain and improve our current wildlife habitats and sites

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Increase their size where possible

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Restore and create new areas for wildlife

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Join them up – through continuous corridors or via green ‘stepping stones’

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Increase the wildlife value of the wider landscape.

Goal 2

Outcome 1: Delivering multiple landmanagement benefits in the Chew Valley such as resource protection, improvement to water quality and flood-risk management while also restoring and connecting species-rich grassland.

Inspire people and communities to care for nature

Outcome 2: Restoring coastal and floodplain grazing-marsh habitat across the North Somerset Levels and Moors to buffer and connect existing areas important for wildlife. For example, ditch restoration across the area will be targeted (more than 50% of ditches surveyed by Avon Wildlife Trust need conservation management).

Outcome 3: Protecting, expanding and connecting core areas of calcareous grassland in the Cotswolds through landowner engagement, where building good relationships with landowners is key to success.

Outcome 4: Managing the National Nature Reserve, and Trust reserves; Clapton Moor and Weston Moor in the Gordano Valley as an exemplar of raised water level management where conditions are ideal for breeding waders to return.

Outcome 5: Enhancing the condition of habitats in the Avon Gorge and Downs, including opening a new nature reserve; Bennett’s Patch & White’s Paddock.

Securing a future rich in wildlife is Avon Wildlife Trust’s vision, one which also brings huge benefits to society.

Central to our strategy for achieving that vision is engaging people in our work. As Sir David Attenborough has observed: Outcome 10: Increasing and improving the network of community hubs, for example at Portbury Wharf in Gordano Valley and Bennett’s Patch and White’s Paddock in the Avon Gorge and Downs, to enable more people to experience nature.

Outcome 11: Increasing opportunities for the public to engage with nature and learn new skills, for example, by delivering innovative schools engagement programmes such as ‘Spawn To Be Wild’ and ‘Landscape Explorers’ in Chew Valley and by enabling people to take part in citizen-science projects to survey wildlife, collate records and produce habitat and species maps for the local area.

“No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”

We will be working with communities and interest groups across the region and people throughout society, both through our existing programmes and networks and by developing new ones.

AWT’s work and presence in urban areas has been vital in communicating what we are working to achieve in the surrounding countryside – and for securing the resources to do so. While the landscape-scale areas and our interventions for enabling nature to recover on a grand scale fall mainly in rural areas – convincing city dwellers of the relevance of our work and of nature’s value to their everyday lives and the communities in which they live is key.

Outcome 6: Implementing targeted action for recovery of Section 41 species (England’s rarest and most threatened species) within the 5 priority areas where habitat conservation alone does not protect populations. For example, recovery of breeding waders in the Gordano Valley may require further intervention such as electric fencing once wetland habitat is restored.

Outcome 9: Delivering landscape-scale habitat restoration through partnership work and a multiagency approach where AWT can add value such as the Forgotten Landscape project in South Gloucestershire, and sustainable restoration of coastal and floodplain grazing-marsh habitat on the North Somerset Levels and Moors.

Outcome 7: Identifying opportunities for innovative funding mechanisms such as Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes and biodiversity offsetting. For example, the results of a Defra-funded PES pilot study in the Chew Valley will be published in 2015.

Outcome 8: Improving quality and connectivity of wildlife habitat across the West of England that contributes to Biodiversity 2020 targets through mechanisms such as B-Lines and Bristol’s Wildlife Corridor Project.

Outcome 12: Mobilising people to take action for wildlife, particularly in the 5 priority areas and delivering connectivity projects – for example, empowering volunteers from schools, universities, corporates and therapeutic care agencies to restore the new nature reserve at Bennets Patch and Whites Paddock.

Goal 3

A New Approach to Natural Health

Champion the value of nature

In 2016, following on from our pioneering Community and Nature project (CAN), we will launch a new Natural Health and Wellbeing programme, offering ‘time out in nature’ to hundreds of people across Avon to boost their mental or physical wellbeing. Supported by the regional Directors of Public Health, our programme will be available on prescription and via GP referral, complementing other medical interventions.

Avon Wildlife Trust will work with partners to champion the value of the environment and provide evidence to show that investing in our natural capital can help to create a strong and sustainable economy and society. Our goal is to ensure that consideration of nature is embedded in all political, economic and planning processes, and the value of nature to society is widely understood and accounted for.

If our ‘natural capital’ (the natural environment, its ecosystems and all the species that rely on it) is to continue to support development now and in the future, it is essential that it is properly taken into account in all decision-making and is invested in appropriately[9], such as through the Government’s national infrastructure plan.

Actions taken and decisions made now will have consequences far into the future for ecosystems, ecosystem services and human wellbeing.

Outcome 13: Maintaining and building crosssector partnership working to secure direct benefits for the environment, local people and the economy. For example we will play a leading role in delivering the strategic aims of the West of England Partnership and will work with partners to identify opportunities for Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs).

This programme builds on evidence gained from the ‘Ecominds’ project, led by mental-health charity Mind and run in collaboration with several Wildlife Trusts, which evaluated the improvements people affected by mental-health issues can gain through access to and engagement with nature: 7 out of 10 of those in a survey of 3,500 people said they, ‘experienced significant increases in mental wellbeing by the time they left the project’ 10.

Outcome 14: Improving environmental evidence to enable informed decisions to be made relating to the natural environment, such as influencing planners and developers to protect the best areas for nature.

Goal 4 Underpin delivery with a robust and long-term business plan

Outcome 16: Developing robust measures of success to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of our work. For example, in partnership with Bristol University, we will look at how to measure when our priority areas are restored and an ecological network is connected.

Outcome 15: Championing the value of nature and improve environmental awareness, for example, launching a new Natural Health and Wellbeing programme.

Outcome 17: Securing sufficient investment from a number of different sources, maximising core, revenue and project funding to deliver our goals and aims.

References 1.

Lawton, J.H., Brotherton, P.N.M., Brown, V.K., Elphick, C., Fitter, A.H., Forshaw, J., Haddow, R.W., Hilborne, S., Leafe, R.N., Mace, G.M., Southgate, M.P., Sutherland, W.J., Tew, T.E., Varley, J., and Wynne, G.R. (2010).

Making Space for Nature: A review of England’s wildlife sites and ecological network. Report to Defra.

2.

Office of National Statistics (2014) www.statistics.gov.uk

3.

RSPB et al. (2013) State of Nature.

4.

Royal Society Wildlife Trusts, (2011) ‘Valuing Nature/ Future Nature’, internal analysis.

5.

Barton, J., Pretty, J. 2010 What is the best dose of nature and green exercise for improving mental health? A multistudy analysis, Environmental Science and Technology, 44(10): 3947-3955.

6.

Avon Biodiversity Partnership (2004) Avon Biodiversity Action Plan

7.

UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) The UK

National Ecosystem Assessment Technical Report. UNEPWCMC, Cambridge.

8.

Defra (2011) Biodiversity 2020: A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services

9.

Second report to the Economic Affairs Committee Natural Capital Committee (2014). The State of Natural Capital: Restoring our Natural Assets

10.

Mind (2013) Feel better outside, Feel better inside: Ecotherapy for mental well-being, resilience and recovery.

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nature reserves cover

1,100 hectares from ancient bluebell woods to Iron Age forts, nationally important wetlands and wildflower meadows

Avon Wildlife Trust Office 32 Jacobs Wells Road Bristol BR8 1DR Registered charity no. 280422 Registered comapny no. 1495108

1980

Formed in , Avon Wildlife Trust is largest local charity working to protect wildlife and inspire people in the West of England area.

AWT is one of 47 Trusts across the UK, delivering on the ground and reflecting local priorities and character.

Collectively they form the federation of The Wildlife Trusts – a national network with a coherent, collective voice and policy overview.

www.avonwildlifetrust.org.uk