The England Biodiversity Group has recommended that central Durham should be one of the country’s first Integrated Biodiversity Delivery Areas, where priority will be given to conserving wildlife and creating new habitats.

The free event will celebrate successful examples of landscape scale initiatives in the county, such as the Heritage Coast.

It will also explore the priorities for the new project and how it can contribute to making the hills and valleys of central Durham even more wildlife friendly.

“The aim is to encourage community engagement and partnership working to protect and enhance native wildlife and encourage the formation of habitat corridors and networks,” said Cllr Neil Foster, Durham County Council’s Cabinet member for regeneration and economic development.

A conference will be held on October 21 that will include a series of presentations on landscape scale initiatives and biodiversity issues together with a bus tour to various wildlife sites in the proposed area.

As part of the event, schools will visit Burnhill Nature Site conservation project, a partnership between landowner Russell Bell, Tow Law Millennium Primary and Blessed John Duckett RC Primary schools, Natural England, the county council’s countryside rangers, Butterfly Conservation, and Durham Wildlife Trust

The project aims to diversify farmland and create a conservation area to protect small pearl bordered fritillary butterfly and provide an educational scheme for schools and community groups.

It is an example of the kind of scheme the new national project aims to promote.

The exhibition and conference are organised in partnership with Durham Wildlife Trust and Europe Direct NE with funding from the European Commission.

Anyone wanting to book a place at the conference on October 21 should contact Helen Bonner on 0191 383 3361 or email helen.bonner@durham.gov.uk by October 8.

Limited places are available especially for the bus tour and places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

The guest speaker is Dr Anne Borland, Reader in Molecular Plant Physiology at the School of Biology at Newcastle University and Director of Moorbank Botanic Garden.

Her lecture ‘A perfect storm’  takes the theme of the many threats facing biodiversity on a local and global scale and asks if these challenges create a ‘perfect storm’ for plant biology and looks at where solutions might lie.

It starts at 7.30pm and tickets priced at £5 are available from Durham Wildlife Trust -   tel: 0191 5843112.

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary (Boloria selene). Photo: James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster - Click photo to enlarge.

Durham Wildlife Trust and Northumbrian Water have launched a new project to protect rare species in the face of climate change, starting with County Durham‘s rarest butterfly.

At the heart of the project is the small pearl-bordered fritillary, a butterfly which has declined by more than 93% in recent times.
Reasons for this include:

• Habitat loss through agricultural intensification, afforestation and development.
• Declines in habitat quality through agricultural abandonment and changes in woodland management.
• Habitat fragmentation and isolation

The historic range of the small pearl bordered fritillary in County Durham included the heaths and shallow valleys around the central belt of the County and the project area, over 29,000 sq ha concentrated around these areas.

Project officer Sue Charlton. Photo courtesy http://www.lowbarns.co.uk

Sue Charlton, Heart of Durham Project Officer, based at the Trust’s Low Barns offices near Witton le Wear, said: “With the help of local landowners and local communities, over the next five years, the project aims to secure the remaining relic areas of heathland, mire, wet and unimproved grassland by ensuring that existing designated Local Wildlife Sites are effectively managed.

“We then aim to, where possible, expand these sites and identify others with the aim of linking all these areas together. Ultimately this will increase the amount of available habitat and allow species to move through the landscape, not only to expand their range but also be able to move in response to a changing climate.”

These habitats are not only home to the small pearl bordered fritillary, but many other species of conservation concern, including the dark green fritillary, adder, grass snake, lapwing, curlew and many more.

The project funded by Northumbrian Water is part of a national network of projects run by the Wildlife Trusts (Living Landscapes) and Northumbrian Water (Branch Out), which eventually aim to provide a national network of high quality habitat which will allow wildlife to thrive and adapt in an uncertain future.

For more information, contact
Sue Charlton, ?Heart of Durham Project Officer
Durham Wildlife Trust?Low Barns, Witton-le-Wear, Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham, DL14 0AG ?Tel: 01388 488728

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Male Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum) - Photo courtesy André Karwath. Click to enlarge... Used under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

One of the UK’s rarest types of wildlife habitat will be expanded following the announcement of a grant to be paid to Durham Wildlife Trust.

The Trust has received £6,000 from the County Durham Environment Trust (CDENT), which will help conserve and expand magnesian limestone fenland at the Trust’s reserve at Raisby Hill, near Coxhoe, County Durham.

The reserve lies on magnesian limestone rock, which outcrops to create a very scarce type of grassland and ever rarer wetlands, the magnesian limestone fens. This occurs in very few places in Britain. Previous projects delivered by the Trust with support from (DENT identified the location of the area’s few remaining fens, including sections of the Trust’s Raisby Hill grassland nature reserve. Now, financial support from (DENT is allowing the Trust to create new areas of magnesian limestone fen at Raisby Hill.

Durham Wildlife Trust’s fen creation work will begin in the late summer after the bird breeding season and is scheduled for completion in the autumn. The project involves excavation of areas next to the few remaining fragments of fen habitat to allow the fens to naturally expand.

A wide range of plant and animal species will benefit, including dragonflies such as the ruddy darter.

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The Quality Badge scheme combines for the first time learning and safety into one easily recognisable badge for all organisations providing learning outside the classroom experiences.

Durham Wildlife Trust Director Jim Cokill said: “Being awarded the Quality Badge is a real coup for all the staff here as it shows that we offer young people the type of high quality learning experiences they really benefit from.

“We’re thrilled to get official recognition for our efforts and we look forward to welcoming even more children and young people from the local area to our nature reserve.”

Durham Wildlife Trust’s purpose is to protect wildlife and promote nature conservation in County Durham, the City of Sunderland and the Boroughs of Gateshead, South Tyneside and Darlington.

It manages 25 Nature Reserves, a variety of species and habitat recovery projects and four Visitor Centres, as well as running an extensive environmental education programme that aims to engage schools, community groups, whole communities, businesses and individuals in issues around nature conservation and the wider environment.

The Quality Badge was developed as part of the Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto, a national initiative to ensure young people are given more opportunities to have these experiences as part of the curriculum. It is part of the Government’s £4.5m Out and About package which, along with the badges, provides guidance and information for teachers on how to plan and organise high quality activities.

The badge is designed to make it easier for teachers to identify providers of quality educational visits. Organisations will display the badge as a signal to schools that their venue has met required standards, so teachers do not need to carry out their own risk or quality assessments.??Ed Balls, Secretary of State Children, Schools and Families, said: “Educational visits are among the most memorable experiences in a child‘s school life. Quality Badges offer teachers a guarantee that not only is a venue providing the sort of educational value that they can build on in class long after the visit but they also have the appropriate risk management structures in place.

“It is a significant victory in our battle to move away from the misguided perception that learning outside the classroom is a potential minefield for teachers. I want to see teachers using Quality Badges as practical decision making tool. It should ensure that many more young people have memorable, exciting and valuable learning outside the classroom experiences. I congratulate Durham Wildlife Trust on being awarded the badge.”

For more information about the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge, please visit www.lotcqualitybadge.org.uk For more information about Durham Wildlife Trust visit www.durhamwt.co.uk or call 0191 5843112

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The parties include pond dipping, mini beast hunts, bird watching, themed games and activities, party food, birthday cake, and goodie bags. Parties can last an hour or two or be a whole day of wildlife activities. The minimum number of children is six, with a maximum of 24, and there must be at least one adult with every six children.

For more information, and details of the cost, please contact Annette at Rainton Meadows 0191 5843112 or 0787 6316168. Trust members receive a ten per cent discount.

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The volunteers will be staffing the coffee shop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10.30 and 2.30pm, selling a variety of refreshments. Local MP Fraser Kemp and Mayor of Sunderland Cllr Denis Richardson kindly performed the official opening before the Family Fun Day.

Trust Director Jim Cokill said; “I’d encourage all members to come down and enjoy Beckwith’s. Their custom will support the work of the Trust and the volunteers will be able to develop new skills. It’s great news for everyone.”

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Stanley Moss is one of the very few remaining blanket peat bogs in the lowlands of County Durham.

Extending 7.5 hectares, it once covered a much larger area but the vast majority of this type of habitat has been lost due to opencast coal mining, forestry and agricultural improvements.

The vegetation at Stanley Moss has developed over a thick layer of peat and supports large stands of heather, bilberry and common cotton grass, which carpet the bog in shades of pink, purple and white in the summer.

The surface of the bog is waterlogged in many places and it is here that there are luxuriant lawns of sphagnum mosses with other uncommon plants such as crowberry, cross-leaved heath and hare’s-tail cotton grass.

The site is also important for birds with meadow pipits, skylark and lapwing, which breed on the site.

Mark Richardson, Trust Reserves Manager, said: “It is now acknowledged that peat bogs make a massive contribution in the fight against climate change due to their ability to store carbon. It is thought that peat actually contains about 65% of the planet’s carbon dioxide and peat bogs store twice as much carbon as all of the world’s forests.

“However, peat bogs have been lost at an alarming rate in the recent past, which makes the restoration and protection of peat bogs such as Stanley Moss so important.”

Durham Wildlife Trust intend to restore Stanley Moss back to its former glory by reinstating the water table in areas where the bog has dried out, due to disturbance from activities such as forestry and agricultural drainage. This will be achieved by installing a series of dams across the drainage ditches, or “grips”, that cross the site.

There is currently a public footpath that runs along the boundary of the site but this is often waterlogged and the Trust intends to make considerable improvements by installing boardwalks across the wetter areas to improve public access.

It is also hoped to acquire further land adjacent to Stanley Moss in the future to increase the area of bog and safeguard its future.
The acquisition of the site has been made possible thanks to the support of EDF Energy, a long-term supporter of Durham Wildlife Trust and are a Corporate Member of the Trust.

Mark Richardson can be contacted on 0191 584 3112

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