Latest news with #Nattergal
Times
14-05-2025
- Climate
- Times
How beavers can help win the fight against floods in Lincolnshire
After weeks of dry weather, the trickle of water in the West Glen River does not look as though it could cause havoc. But during Storm Henk in January last year it took only a few hours for this stream to become a torrent, inundating a garden centre in the Lincolnshire village of Baston. Archie Struthers, chief executive of the nature restoration company Nattergal, said the West Glen is a prime example of the way in which Britain's water courses have been mismanaged — straightened and deepened to whoosh rainwater away from farmland as quickly as possible. Struthers wants to turn this river into an example of how to manage water better and to reduce the risk of flood at a time when climate change
BBC News
11-04-2025
- General
- BBC News
Rewilding Methwold site aims to restore 750 acres of wetland
A former daffodil farm is to be returned to vital wetland through a rewilding project at the 292-hectare (721-acre) High Fen site in Methwold, Norfolk, is being undertaken by a private company called will be paid for by selling units of biodiversity net gain (BNG) to developers whose projects fail to meet a government target to boost nature. Matt Hay, natural capital project manager at Nattergal, said the company used private investment to buy degraded land - unsuitable for agriculture - and restore it. "We are not a charity, we are a for profit company," he said."We think if nature recovery is genuinely going to scale to the level we need to have a meaningful impact on the climate crisis, then it needs to be investable." The soil at High Fen is full of peat, so keeping it wet ensures the containment of stores of Hay said the rewilding was very different to preserving sites that were already nature-rich. "We're not taking sites that are already good for nature and keeping them good," he said. "We're taking degraded land where we believe the land use has historically not been appropriate and restoring those for nature." Key to the success of the project will be getting the site to stay wetter for longer. High Fen site manager Frank Street said the creation of an 800m-long (2,625ft) earth embankment was recently completed. "It has very low permeability," he said."We built this on the naturally slightly higher ground. The water won't ever be lapping at the bank but it will just stay, forming deeper pockets as it gets closer to the river banks."Wetland habitats support a wide range of plants, animals and birds. Turtle doves, lapwings and cranes have already been spotted on the site. The National Farmers' Union (NFU) saysthere is no single definition of Hesketh, NFU regional policy manager for the East of England, said most farmers were already undertaking projects for the benefit of nature that could be defined as rewilding. "There's obviously a bit more of it happening now than there perhaps was five or 10 years ago," he said. "There's a mixed reception among the farming community. It can be a bit of a Marmite topic within agriculture." Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
