Related Projects

Salisbury Plain LIFE Project

The Salisbury Plain LIFE Project is a major four year conservation project centred on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The four sites involved in the project are Salisbury Plain, Porton Down, Parsonage Down National Nature Reserve and Pewsey Downs National Nature Reserve. Across these sites conservation management benefits chalk grassland, juniper, the stone curlew and marsh fritillary butterfly.

Salisbury Plain is the largest remaining block of chalk grassland in North West Europe supporting a wide range of plant and animal communities of unique importance. Wiltshire thus makes a very significant contribution to the conservation of chalk grasslands and its associated wildlife in Europe.

The EC LIFE Nature fund contributes 50% of the total Project's costs of £2,130,000 over four years, finishing in September 2005. The other 50% is matched funding provided by HQ Army Training Estate, English Nature, Defence Science Technology Laboratory, RSPB, Butterfly Conservation and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

RIO Project

The Rural Issues and Opportunities (RIO) Project was initially a 16 month feasibility project which exmined the potential economic, social and enviornmental opportunities arising in mid cornwall following the A30 Goss Moor cSAC bypass and road improvement scheme. RIO is a collaborative partnership between English Nature, Cornwall County Council, Environment Agency, Restormel Borough Council and the Highways Agency.

Through a 12 month process of local and regional consultation a series of opportunities were identified which together provide a framework for sustainable development of the mid Cornwall area. During this period a LIFE Nature application for funding for habitat restoration of the Breney Common and Goss and Tregoss Moors cSAC was submitted. This proposal aimed to maximise the biodiversity opportunities arising from the road scheme.

The RIO project is now in its second phase (RIO+2; April 2004 - April 2005) and will develop the remaining economic and social opportunities as identified in the initial feasibility. RIO+2 will develop partnerships and submit funding applications to take forward green tourism, sustainable transport and agriculture opportunities as considered feasible.

Tomorrow's Heathland Heritage

The Tomorrow's Heathland Heritage project "Putting back the wild heart of Cornwall" is a landscape scale post-mining regeneration project that has seen the successful re-creation of 750 ha of lowland heathland on former china clay waste tips in the St Austell mining area.

Achieved through a partnership between English Nature, Imerys, Cornwall County Council and Goonvean and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund it provides the basis for integrated landscape regeneration and wider social and economic regeneration. Recently joined by the China Clay Woodland Project, a £3M Objective One funded initiative to re-create and restore 800 ha of native broadleaf woodland.

Together these projects demonstrate a world class example of good practice and are the biggest post-mining regeneration initiative of its kind in Europe.

The China Clay Woodland Project

The China Clay Woodland Project is a three and a half year public/private partnership that will work on woodlands in the china clay area of mid Cornwall until the autumn of 2008. Led by Natural England, the project will utilise significant funding from Objective One, Defra and Imerys to plant over 300 hectares of new native broadleaved woodland.

In addition it will also bring over 400 hectares of existing woodland into more sustainable management. Species such as conifers and rhododendron will be removed from these woods and replaced with trees species that are native to Cornwall such as oak, ash and hazel.

Seven and a half miles of new access routes are planned as part of the project to allow you to walk through newly planted woods and watch them grow and develop. These new footpaths will link into existing access provision being provided in the area, such as the newly opened ‘Clay Trails’.

For further information contact Richard Bellamy at: richard.bellamy@naturalengland.org.uk