Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership

The Wildflower Ark is spending the summer surveying the lost meadows of eastern Cleveland. To help ensure they don’t miss any old meadows and pastures in their survey they are inviting people to help them in their hunt.

Click here to download the Hunt for Lost Meadows postcard

If you know of a patch of grassland with wildflowers such as cowslip, devils bit scabious or yellow rattle there is a postcard to fill in. It may be by a footpath through farmland, a road verge, by a stream, or perhaps somewhere local you remember from your childhood. The Wildflower Ark will investigate all sightings and let you know if you have found an old meadow. The project, which is funded by the Heritage Lottery fund, will provide valuable information for this priority biodiversity habitat which is now rare throughout England. The Tees Valley Wildlife Trust will, in 2009, be able to carry out practical management work on some of the meadows if cutting or scrub removal is needed to ensure a future for these.

Lost meadows of eastern Cleveland

Whilst surveyors from the Wildflower Ark were recording hedgerows in eastern Cleveland during 2007, they stumbled across lots of tiny remnants of grassland rich in wildflowers. Many of these were isolated patches, often on steep slopes that had escaped agricultural improvements.

Jessica Harrison, from Wildflower Ark, says

“We were delighted to find these gems of meadows and pastures but could see that many of them would be lost without some practical management of cutting, grazing or scrub removal”.

Grant awarded for meadow inventory

Lowland meadows are a national BAP priority habitat with at least 97% lost in England and Wales during the 20th century due to ploughing and agricultural intensification. Reconising the importance of their finds the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded the Wildflower Ark a grant of £44,200 towards a £51,000 in order to survey meadows of eastern Cleveland in 2008.

What the project will achieve

Over the next twelve months the project will produce an inventory of lowland meadows in eastern Cleveland by identifying new sites and surveying known sites. It will involve volunteers in a coordinated survey of public footpaths throughout eastern Cleveland looking for signs of lowland meadows. A public appeal will be made for both memories of lowland meadows as well as recent sightings of meadow wildflowers. As part of the project they will increase public awareness of the character, extent, heritage and biodiversity importance of lowland meadows, through articles in the press, traveling exhibitions, plus guided walks and talks.

Bringing meadows into favourable condition

Using the results of these surveys, the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust plan to work with landowners of meadows identified during the project where scrub removal or cutting is needed to improve their condition. Where grazing is required, landowners will be provided with information about suitable grazing schemes and be given information on the assistance they could receive from DEFRA if they qualify for a countryside stewardship scheme. Meadows that are owned by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council will be highlighted for appropriate management to be carried out by council maintenance teams.

Further information on the project

Contact Jessica Harrison (Project Coordinator):
Email
wildflowerark@hotmail.com

Website
www.wildflowerark.org.uk

Tel
01642 576611

Address
The Wildflower Ark,
Nature’s World,
Ladgate Lane, Acklam,
Middlesbrough
TS5 7YN.

Tags: meadows, Survey

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Surveys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.