Living Landscapes - an introduction
Andy May and Lucinda Butcher, Essex Wildlife Trust. Tel: 01621 862960
Essex Wildlife Trust not only operates within its nature reserves, but also works to
improve and enhance biodiversity throughout Essex. To combat the growing pressures
facing Essex wildlife, the Trust has developed a landscape scale approach to conserve
and restore biodiversity. The 'Living Landscapes' are important areas for wildlife,
people, the community and economy. Living Landscapes are ecologically functioning
areas such as river valleys, woodland mosaics and whole estuaries that are large enough
to provide resilience and connectivity for wildlife; access and enjoyment for local people;
sustainable contributions to the economy and opportunities to adapt to climate change.
The Trust, supported by many other bodies, has undertaken a review across Essex and
identified 80 Living Landscape Areas.
The Living Landscapes concept has been adopted into the Essex Local Area Agreement
(LAA 2008-2011), requiring the LAA partners to write vision documents for the Living
Landscape areas. Those being written this year are listed in Table 1 and can be seen
highlighted in Figure 1. Living Landscapes offer an innovative approach to conservation
which promotes co-operation between conservation bodies, landowners and government
agencies to achieve improvements across large tracts of land outside isolated nature
reserves. Over the next few years, work will begin to improve and promote the great
value of these areas for wildlife, for local people and for the local economy.
In order to promote the success of the various land management schemes within each
Living Landscape it is important to have gathered relevant data. To reflect a lack of
resources required to survey these areas the use of 'indicator' species for specific Living
Landscapes has been proposed. By gathering data to highlight changes in biodiversity
achieved through the Living Landscapes approach, we will be able to sell the success of
the work on the ground. The more success we can show from the work within the Living
Landscapes the more resources that are likely to be fuelled into these projects in the
future.
The Living Landscapes approach is all about working collaboratively to achieve aims
that will ultimately benefit wildlife and people. If you would like to find out more or
contribute to the Living Landscapes work, please contact Andy May or Lucinda Butcher
at Essex Wildlife Trust.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 59, May 2009
23