August in the Forest
Posted on behalf of Linda Iles
Female Emperor Dragonfly
August in the Forest
In April this year Kent Wildlife Trust announced the results of their 2023 insect survey, based on the numbers of dead insects found on car registration plates by volunteers after 26,500 journeys nationwide. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to know that there had been a decline in numbers (especially if you’re the one who cleans the car!) but the scale of it is shocking – an 89% fall in the last 20 years. We simply can’t manage without insects. Sir David Attenborough has said, “If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world’s ecosystems would collapse.” If I’ve noticed the decline, living as I do in the middle of a National Nature Reserve, then we’re in trouble. I was cheered by the sight of a Marbled White butterfly recently after noting the complete absence of any but the Meadow Brown this summer.
Haphazard weather can be disastrous for invertebrates, but there’s no doubt that the way land is managed is a serious threat too. Nature-friendly practices account for a very small proportion of the landscape, with intensive farming practices such as habitat removal, indiscriminate pesticide use and monoculture of crops turning most of our country into a wildlife desert. How heartening it is then to hear about the success stories brought about by Worcestershire County Council’s partnership with Worcestershire Wildlife Trust to run Natural Networks, which works with landowners and provides match funding for work on their land that helps nature. From 2018 to 2023 conservation advice has been offered covering more than 2630 hectares of land right across Worcestershire, and as a result projects are under way in 130 hectares. Examples of the work include 27,700+ trees and shrubs and 4,400+ metres of hedges planted, and 50+ ponds and wetlands created.
An independent evaluation of the first five years of the project concluded that for every £1 spent, £4.20 was gained in public benefits like clean air, better water quality and improved nature-based recreation opportunities for local people, and the project has been extended into 2025.
Another initiative is Severn Treescapes, joining up woodlands from the River Wye to the Wyre Forest. A neighbouring smallholding have just transformed a field into a young mixed deciduous woodland, complete with sunny rides, a new pond and flowery grassland. Why make a new woodland next to the oak forest? Because the aim is to go ‘bigger, better and more joined-up’.
