Green Shoots On The Somerset Levels - Robin Marshall-Ball

The Green Shoots project on the Somerset levels has been highly successful but has the potential to do even more in the future. Working with our members and partners we’ve planted thousands of trees, excavated 21 flight ponds, and our efforts to reduce the number of mink is directly helping the re-colonisation of the area by water voles. 

Below is more information or click on image above for a short film about our current work in Somerset.

Document title
Green Shoots on the Somerset Levels Annual Report 2007-2008
Green Shoots on the Somerset Levels Annual Report 2008-2009
Green Shoots on the Somerset Levels Annual Report 2009-2010

Current Activities

In the last four years over 6,000 native trees have been planted, more than 10km of new hedgerows created, and 21 new flight ponds excavated on the Somerset Levels Green Shoots Project. And since 282 mink have been captured, there is now evidence that water voles have re-colonised areas of the Levels where they have been absent for the last decade. We are now working closely with Natural England, the Somerset Wildlife Trust, and the Environment Agency on a water vole survey to confirm this encouraging trend. The major new project for this year is the Somerset Lapwing Project, a collaboration between BASC, RSPB, FWAG, and Natural England, aimed at halting the decline of nesting lapwings in and around the Levels. This spring we need to know the whereabouts of any nesting lapwings in the area so that we can assess their 'preferred nesting sites' and try to create the same conditions elsewhere.

• Conduct postal and ‘on the ground’ surveys of BASC members’ land in order to collect new wildlife and land-use records.  To date over 70,000 acres of shooting land on the Somerset Levels have been surveyed.
   
• Provide advice and encouragement to members wishing to improve the shooting potential and biodiversity on their land through individual site visits and local membership events such as Flight Pond Workshops (with the EA), Cover Crop Walkabouts, and Farmland Bird Days (with RSPB).  Over 400 new ‘environmental gain’ projects have been started in the last three years.
   
• Co-ordinate predator control for corvids, working with English Nature and local Wildfowling Clubs over large areas of the Levels .
   
• Create the Environment Agency’s mink control zone (the ‘Cordon Sanitaire’) across the Southwest Peninsula to help the survival of water voles in the area.  A BASC- led trapping and monitoring team now exists from Clevedon on the Bristol Channel to the Exe estuary on the south coast. A further team reaching the Dorset coast will be established this autumn.

Since the start of the Somerset Levels Project, approximately sixty BASC land-owning members have become involved in the Green Shoots programme, with more joining each year.  The table below summarises their achievements to date.

Conservation Activity	Total for 2005	Gain over 3 years
1. ‘Gapping-up’/renovating old hedges	2.81km	6.95km
2. Planting new hedgerows	3.72km	8.08km
3. Planting hedgerow trees	165	480
4. Tree planting, either as specimens or within 5. below	1312	4979
5. Planting ‘spinneys’ or other small woodland	6 (1.83ha)	20 (5.81ha)
6. Coppicing/pollarding mature trees	43	163
7. Creating woodland ‘butterfly glades’	0.3ha	0.92ha
8. Cutting/maintaining woodland rides	6.14km	16.18km
9. Renovating Derelict ponds	6	10
10. Creating new flight ponds	8	17
11. Creating grass-strip field margins	108km	237.3km
12. Planting cover crops/wild bird mixes	41.1ha	117.51ha
13. Creating ‘wild flower’ meadows	8.71ha	37.88ha
14. Sympathetic ditch and rhyne clearance	3.8km	22.22km
15. Erecting nest boxes/bat boxes	14	38
16. Creating new reedbed	-	200m 2

Contact: 07748 783289
Email