The Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) will soon be launching a new service to enable farmers and landowners to change or adapt their land management practices to be wildlife-friendly and to support sustainable food production.
The wildlife and farm advisory service will help farmers and landowners transition into the new world of sustainable agriculture which is being driven by policy and regulation changes in the UK.
The service will harness BBOWT’s 60 years of environmental land management experience, managing 2700 hectares of freehold and leased land (800 hectares of which is in agricultural use), and extensive environmental expertise, helping to maximise the environmental potential of land across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. The Trust will work more closely with farmers and land managers to support more wildlife-friendly land management practices on the 76% of agricultural land across the three counties.
BBOWT has many ideas about the services it can offer to the farming community, based on its existing programmes of work, where it can conduct baseline environmental assessments of landholdings, provide advice about the conservation opportunities, and help farmers work together to achieve landscape scale change to benefit wildlife. Examples include the Trust's work on Oxfordshire Local Wildlife Sites and Water Vole Recovery Projects, and its work with the Happy Valley and Thames Farmers Conservation Groups.
BBOWT is interested in hearing from the farming and landowning community and wants to understand their interest in accessing BBOWT’s new service.
BBOWT has launched a survey to consult with the farming and landowning community across the three counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire to help shape its wildlife and farm advisory service. Please have your say, and fill it out by September 25, 2020.
Those taking part in the survey will automatically be entered into a draw to win a FREE one-to-one farming and wildlife consultation.
