WBEP - Update 2
Much has been done since we last put pen to paper about the Wendling Beck Environment Project. Including a new website: click here to take a look. In case you were wondering, Digg & Co., has been involved since the beginning and our work has spanned from initial masterplanning and ecological design into more detailed management plans and habitat mapping as the project moved from planning to the delivery stages.Along with this more technical work, an important part has been to visualise this new future.
Restoration work is often bound up in data and reams of text, but an artistic view of what we hope to create allows everyone, from all angles, to see into what will be created. We find that hand drawn images convey this far more emotively as one can never create something too perfect. In many ways this low on detail perspective allows us all to fill in our own blanks and become creative in light of stimulation. One of the drawings we made for the project is below. A bird’s eye view of the interlinked habitats as they may one day be.
A bird’s eye view of some of the project area
Over 220 acres of land has already been seeded with locally sourced native wildflowers which will begin the process of ecological restoration for a myriad of grassland types. These will gradually emerge as subtle variations in soil moisture, pH, nutrition and fungi all exert their influences on the landscape. The hope is that through these natural forces, a wide and highly biodiverse structure is established, which can then be gently steered through traditional hay making and contemporary stockmanship, to reach excellent levels of species richness.
As the summer approaches we will be taking regular visits to watch and learn from nature as she begins the process of repairing the soil. The project is blessed to be supported by universities and professionals alike, who during this rebirth of the land will be watching too, albeit with instruments and clipboards to closely monitor how the land responds and where to make changes for next time. We still have another 1700 acres to do!
For us, the next steps are to assist in the restorations of other areas and habitats, some of which are fairly complex, such as floodplain meadows and wood pasture. We are also looking forward, more than anything else, to seeing how the serendipitous nature of these landscapes ebb and flow in the early years and which plants, insects, fungi, birds, mammals, etc., decide to once again call this landscape home.
It is without doubt one of the wonders and luxuries of this work, that when most of the thinking is complete, we can step back and watch the natural world with awe as it reconnects the millions upon millions of threads of life which we all rely on every day.
Catch up soon.
Toby.