Imagine a landscape rich with wildfl ower meadows, awash with butterfl ies and birds, where dormice travel through an unbroken network of hedgerows and bats fly overhead ... this is the vision your Trust cherishes of a truly wildlife-rich landscape.

Working on a landscape scale
We have been working with Wildlife Trusts in the South West in recent years on the ‘Rebuilding Biodiversity’ initiative to develop ambitious landscape-scale projects which aim to create and link together areas of priority wildlife habitats into robust and extensive networks. Across the UK, other Wildlife Trusts are also starting to develop their own programmes, such as the Great Fen Project in Cambridgeshire.

Wildlife Wealth
In this area, we are focussing on wildfl ower-rich grasslands, which are of immense conservation value because of the great variety of plants and animals they support, many of which are in serious decline at a national level. This includes mammals such as greater horseshoe bat and brown hare, many birds which use grasslands for nesting and feeding, like the skylark, and invertebrates including rare butterflies such as small pearl-bordered fritillary.

A Helping Hand
We plan to work closely with our many partners, as we look at what is needed to conserve and restore our grasslands. It may also be possible to create new grasslands, where the conditions are right, by collecting wildfl ower seeds or green hay from one site and applying it to another one nearby.

Over a 5-year time span this project will create larger, more robust wildlife habitats, with the most valuable areas expanded and connected to other wildlife sites.

Climate challenge
We are also learning that this is our best approach to dealing with the possible effects of climate change, by giving species a chance to adapt to change. Wildlife needs space to respond, large areas of well-managed land, offering habitats with a balanced 'structure’ and range of habitats.

You can help!
The Trust needs to raise £470,000 for this 5-year project. A major funding bid has just been submitted to a sympathetic charitable trust, but we still need to raise a considerable sum in matched funding and we are asking our members for help in raising £40,000 of this. We are determined to be successful because the Trust’s vision of a living landscape, for wildlife and for people, is more urgent today than it has ever been.

Please consider supporting us in this important appeal, and bring a wildlife-rich landscape back to your doorstep.

Living Landscapes will:

• Survey 2,800 hectares of wildlife-rich grassland

• Restore 1,500 hectares of wildlife-rich grassland

• Work alongside landowners to maintain, restore and create grassland sites

• Help farmers obtain agri-environment grants for this work

• Carry out work to restore and enhance grasslands

• Set up schemes that will help with the restoration of grassland

• Establish sustainable methods that will help maintain grassland sites, such as appropriate grazing schemes

• Benefit a host of wildlife species that are priorities for conservation

How you can help

Grasslands are among the most labour intensive and costly habitats to restore and maintain, needing sufficient livestock, fencing, water supply, equipment and scrub control. We need to raise £40,000 as matched funding towards our 5-year bid.

There are many ways in which you can help, for example:

• £20 would enable us to reseed up to 50 sq metres of wildflower grassland

• £50 could enable the installation of 10m of essential fencing

• £100 would pay for one farm advice visit

• £250 could fund the installation of two field gates

• £500 could pay for full botanical surveys of up to four grassland sites

• £1000 would enable us to restore a hectare of limestone grassland

PLEASE GIVE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD