12 ‘high-impact’ wildlife projects to receive funding from the UK

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Restoring a kelp forest off the Sussex coast, creating new habitat for heat-sensitive butterflies and connecting fractured wetlands for the reintroduction of beavers are among 12 new projects receiving funding to help the UK tackle climate change, the Wildlife Trusts has announced. Planting new seagrass pastures in the Solent, expanding salt marshes on the Essex coast and restoring peatlands in Cumbria, Durham, Yorkshire, Northumberland and Somerset are some of the “high-impact” schemes that the nature charity said will help mitigate the impact of global heating on land and at sea.

Alongside the projects, backed by nearly £2m of funding from players of the People’s Postcode Lottery, researchers will investigate how best to protect the UK’s ecosystems and biodiversity from rising temperatures, while also paving the way for the reintroduction of locally extinct species in some cases.

One project in East Anglia will work with Cambridge University researchers to understand how micro-habitats in chalk grassland can be created to protect temperature-sensitive butterflies like the small blue, the chalkhill blue and the Duke of Burgundy. 

Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said the 12 schemes were focused on both climate change mitigation and adaptation.

“We urgently need to be thinking about how we can let nature help in tackling the climate crisis [and] how it can help with adaptation. A lot of that is about holding water back in the landscape: recreating our wetlands, restoring our peatlands and reintroducing beavers,” he said. “We know there is a lot of eco-anxiety and sometimes people feel we are not changing fast enough. If we can establish large-scale projects and actually start to turn things around, we can demonstrate what can be done in the UK.”

Source - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/08/high-impact-wildlife-projects-aim-to-restore-habitats-across-england