Nature And Landscape

Restoring Nature: Preparing for the Future

As an iconic chalk landscape, with 55% of the UK’s unimproved chalk downland, Wiltshire is central to achieving the Big Chalk partnership’s vision. This project will enable us to lay the foundations for influencing land managers across the county, by strengthening our own baseline data for our reserves to inform a best practice approach to adaptive management, integrating natural processes for climate resilience. The project will also fund in-depth baselining at Great Chalfield, our flagship partnership to create a learning hub for nature-friendly farming and green finance that will engage farmer clusters across and beyond Wiltshire. Crucially, the project will support skills development in the conservation and farming sectors. We will host four trainees, who will learn how to blend insights from ecology and agronomy to support the national ambition for nature friendly farming, and how to deploy a spectrum of conservation methods from heritage techniques to modern data technology.