By Matthew Smith, Natural Capital & Corporate Partnership Lead

During August and September we have been busy with our partners at the Bristol and Avon Rivers Trust gathering information from the seven landowners who together form the Landscape Recovery Project in the Lower Chew Valley. The information we gather is critical in gaining an understanding of landowners’ needs and the opportunities that exist for restoring ecosystems on the land. 

Each landowner accompanied the team on our visits and provided personal context and history of the Lower Chew Valley and its cultural and environmental heritage. Whilst each farm told a different story, they all had the same desire to work harmoniously with nature as part of their business model. There is recognition that a joined-up landscape approach could deliver increased benefits for climate, nature and the rural economy.  

We will be using the landowner information to develop a delivery plan under the new Landscape Recovery Environmental Land Management subsidy scheme. Our aim is to build a strong business case that successfully secures long-term funds to turn our projects’ shared vision into reality. 

Our visits have highlighted significant opportunities for improving and restoring the river, drainage ditches and creating nature- rich wetland habitats that will store water during periods of high rainfall and prevent downstream flooding.  

The Chew Valley has bountiful ancient field margins and hedgerows that are home to many veteran trees. There is lots of opportunity to extend and enhance these important ‘mini forests’ and ‘nature corridors’ across the landscape to make areas of natural habitat more joined-up.  

Much of the agricultural grassland in England has been enriched with nutrients from fertilisers to increase productivity for grazing and haymaking. This means these ecosystems become dominated by a low number of species that like the nutrient rich soil. These ‘improved’ grasslands hold fewer flowering plants and provide lower quality habitat for insects and other animals.

Reducing nutrient levels will improve species diversity on the grasslands over time and this presents one potential ‘quick win’ for our project. This could help increase numbers of pollinators and other insects which form the base of the food chain and provide a food source that encourages insectivora animals, such as birds and small mammals, into the area.

Some landowners have already established new permanent forest on their land. Our visits showed high potential for establishing new woodlands in the right places, particularly on unproductive land and existing woodlands margins. There is also an appetite from some landowners to explore different options for agroforestry systems.  

As ANT establishes the Lower Chew Forest in the heart of the Lower Chew Valley, the existing woodland fragments will begin to join-up and make a bigger area of woodland that will make significant steps towards increasing the 8% tree-cover in the Avon Catchment towards the national average of ~15%.  

These new woodlands will not only provide habitat for important species, but will draw in carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their branches, trunk and root systems. They will provide a natural carbon store that helps fight the climate crisis and a new forest that will provide inspiration and support the well-being of  future generations.

As we enter the winter months, we will present our site visit findings to our project landowners. We will work collaboratively to ensure that the vision for the Lower Chew Valley is a shared one. This will be used to formulate an approach that carefully accounts for each farm’s actions in achieving the overall vision for the landscape. 

The outcomes of the visioning process should be ready in early 2025, where we look forward to updating you more on our progress towards restoring the Lower Chew Valley landscape!

For more information please contact Alice Brown, the People and Nature Lead for the Lower Chew Valley Landscape Recovery Project at Avon Needs Trees. 

Photo credits: Matthew Smith