Blogs

Members and regular readers of our messages about the success of bottom-up approaches to nature conservation will be aware that we call those private land managers, working conservationists.  But in truth we probably should also be emphasising the value of farming conservationists.

Eleanor Williams looks at the Big Farmland Bird Count as it celebrates its 10th birthday.

On 30th May GWCT Newsround reported on a think piece by Hong Jiang a PhD student at York University which asked how we achieve the expansion of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM) in line with the ambitions of COP15 and the new post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The GBF commits to 23 action-orientated targets by 2030.

John Szczur reports on unprecedented rain which has damaged habitats and put harvest in doubt. John Szczur is the ecologist at our Allerton Project farm. He is passionate about wildlife and how to help farmers combat climate change.

Is the focus on carbon distracting from the benefits of considering soil health in the round?

What are the parties promising our farmers and land managers?

Presenter Dougie Vipond made a visit to the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s demonstration farm in Aberdeenshire to see how their landscape-scale approach to farming and conservation is helping wader species such as lapwing, oystercatcher and curlew thrive.

Open Farm Sunday has been taking place in June every year since 2006, and this year the GWCT took part in several events across the country. The day provides an opportunity for farmers to share their fabulous work with all ages, by opening their farms to the general public, and showcasing the many goods and services they provide.

I recently returned from the biennial EURAF European Agroforestry Conference in the Czech Republic. My train from Vienna was cancelled because of exceptionally severe flooding in Austria and southern Germany so that I arrived home a day late. It was a relatively minor inconvenience. The flooding resulted in fatalities, river levels rising to their highest level in a century, and the Danube being closed to shipping.

Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Scotland’s Fiona Torrance recently took Dougie Vipond from BBC Landward on a grey partridge count around the fields of Balgonie, where conservation efforts have seen numbers of this iconic farmland bird soar in the last 10 years.