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A Welsh landowner and stalwart GWT member and volunteer has scooped
the top prize in a UK wide competition organised by the charity
People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) to reward the
conservation efforts made by the farming and local community to
protect and restore our hedgerows and woodlands and safeguard native
wildlife. Keith Allen from Monmouthshire triumphed in the
Reconnecting the Countryside competition, because, say the judges,
he demonstrated a clear vision for the wider landscape: connecting
up the largest continuous stretch of dormouse-friendly habitat;
planting and managing his hedgerows; at the same time as working in
close collaboration with his neighbours. Three runners-up were also
announced, including one of Keith Allen’s farming neighbours, Alan
Morgan from Llangovan also in Monmouthshire.
Keith is a retired member of the community and focuses his time on
conservation work as well as acting as a local dormouse monitor and
helping train other dormouse volunteers. In order to connect
neighbouring land across the surrounding countryside, he has worked
with three other partners including his farmer neighbour, Alan
Morgan, the Gwent Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust as part of
the Usk to Wye campaign. In addition to independently laying and
planting over 138 new hazel trees on neighbouring land over the last
year, Keith has also planted 45 hazel trees on his own land to form
dormouse friendly hedgerows. Keith undertook all this work under his
own initiative and without funding and plans to spend much of his
£1,000 prize on further dormouse conservation work!
Alan Morgan from Llangovan, was another Welsh success in the
competition, he owns and farms a 58 hectare sheep farm neighbouring
Keith Allens land. By gapping-up, planting and managing his
hedgerows as well as planting new woodland he has ensured a
continuous woody habitat of over 20 hectares including the SSSI
Croes Robert Wood, Gaer Wood. As well as managing woodland for
dormouse habitat he has restored hay meadows alongside 15 ponds
which support frogs, toads and all three species of newt including
the rare great crested newt. Alan particularly impressed the judges
by demonstrating how much could be achieved on a working farm,
through a commitment to wildlife.
For the hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius), good
quality, species-rich hedgerows provide not only a habitat in
themselves, but also a source of food and a means of dispersal
between other areas of woodland habitat. Unsympathetic management of
hedgerows therefore, can have a disproportionate impact on the local
dormouse population which may become isolated. So whilst improving
hedgerow conservation will certainly have a positive impact on our
dormouse population, many other species will also benefit, including
other small mammals, bats, birds, butterflies, moths and other
invertebrates.
In the period following the Second World War, the decline of Britain
’s hedgerows accelerated substantially due to increased use of
mechanised agricultural machinery permitting the removal of many
boundaries to increase field sizes. In 1946 Natural England has
estimated there were half a million miles of hedgerows in England ,
which had more than halved by the early 1990s.
However the greatest threat to our remaining hedgerows is neglect
and inconsistent management and this emphasises the importance of
the work undertaken by the winners of the Reconnecting the
Countryside competition.
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