James welcomes news that the ‘West Norfolk Nature Network – WNNN’ and ‘North-West Norfolk Coast’ projects been awarded funding through the second round of the Landscape Recovery scheme.
Landscape Recovery is one of our three Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs) available to farmers in England as we continue our transition away from direct payments to our new funding style.
Landscape Recovery funds long-term, large-scale, bespoke projects designed to enhance the natural environment and deliver significant environmental benefits alongside the sustainable production of food.
The West Norfolk Nature Network (WNNN) project is farmer led with aims to transform the ecological landscape by creating swathes of contiguous multi-layered successional scrub, integrated with a mosaic of land and water-based features serving as conduits for wildlife movement and diversity enhancement. It will showcase the power of farmer driven, sustainable land management as a force for positive change.
Located on the Sandringham Estate, the North-West Norfolk Coast Project is aiming to create a range of semi-natural habitats including wetlands, saltmarsh, species-rich grasslands and wood-pasture heath across 43 square miles of connected land. In addition, it aims to restore three chalk rivers from source to sea and provide coastal flood mitigation measures to protect a large area of land.
Projects will now receive a share of around £25 million in project development funding.
Together these projects will support over 200,000 hectares of nature and sustainable food production, working hand in hand with local farmers and communities. They will restore more than 35,000 hectares of peatland, sustainably manage more than 20,000 hectares of wood-land, including some temperate rainforest, with over 7,000 hectares of woodland creation, benefit more than 160 protected sites (SSSIs) and involve at least 700 land managers.
