Val Bourne’s Wildlife
We must cherish sites of special interest, as any careless mistakes will be so damaging for our wildlife, says Val
IAM not a great lover of power tools, I have to admit, ladies! The only ones I really value are my electric lawnmower and my shredder.
I don’t use leaf vacs or strimmers: they make a lot of horrible noise and do quite a lot of environmental damage. It may look as though you’re gardening, armed with one of those gadgets, but you’re not. Gardening is a nurturing activity, and not an exercise in neatness.
Much larger machines can really do some damage to the soil structure and the natural world. I often think back to a walk I took in my old village of Hook Norton in Oxfordshire, 20-odd years ago. It was a lovely April day that spoke of promise to come. I strolled across the river between Hooky and Swerford, through a short stretch of green lane that was a botanical hotspot in the parish. Campion and primroses lined the path and wild bluebells showed off their cobalt-blue blooms.
It takes about three quarters of an hour to ramble between those two Oxfordshire villages. When I went through the green lane the first time, the birds were singing and all was well with the world. By the time I returned, the whole area had been scoured out by a tractor with a digger attachment, back to bare earth: I actually wept. It turned out that the farm had a new owner with no intimate knowledge of what grew where, so he had unwittingly removed the lot.
The Wildlife Trusts reported a similar disaster on the River Lugg in Herefordshire. This nationally important river rises near Llangunllo and travels down to the north of Leominster, where it joins with the River Arrow. The Welsh name means ‘bright stream’. The lower reaches have been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) since 1995. Crayfish, otters, salmon and lampreys live on this stretch, and kingfishers roam the river, too.
On 1st December 2020, it was found that a local landowner had cleared the banks, removed gravel from the riverbed and straightened the meanders. All the vegetation in the area had been scoured out up by bulldozer, leaving the riverbank devastated.
The matter is still under investigation, but the landowner has said that the Environment Agency and parish council asked him to complete the work in order to prevent local flooding. As anyone knows, meandering bends slow down the water. Canalising this area sends fast-flowing water downstream, causing problems further down – in this case, Leominster.
This clearance released a huge amount of soil into the water, and gravel beds (where fish such as salmon and trout spawn) were covered in silt. The lack of vegetation will mean that more soil will be washed into the water in the months to come. Whatever your point of view on the rights and wrongs, it’s a muddle because two organisations were probably at cross purposes, and as a result a valuable SSSI has been damaged. It shows how little joined-up thinking there is between wildlife and conservation bodies. The River Lugg investigation is still ongoing.
Getting it right is so important, because there are 4,000 SSSIs in England, covering around seven per cent of land area. The majority of sites are in private ownership, but they’re managed by Natural England. They’re rich in wildlife, but these areas also benefit the well-being of local people. My favourite Gloucestershire SSSI has large blue butterflies in summer, and I’m very unlikely to see one of those skipping through my garden. Our family visits there are a highlight of our year.
It makes me so happy when I think of Amateur Gardening readers, because I know many of you love your wildlife, and it’s become even more important in lockdown. We can all make a difference in our own way, so keep going, because the times they are a-changing.
“Getting it right is so important”