Finding ways to make conservation work pay is important if we are to maintain habitats for their priority species. In this guest blog, Jim Lennon, Conservation Adviser, explains how partners have come together to find a solution to one particular issue, that will have wide ranging benefits and can be used elsewhere.
Sometimes the solution to a problem is not obvious and you need as Baldrick would say, come up with a “cunning plan”.
Unit 4 of the Idle Washland Special Site of Scientific Interest, near Gringley-on-the-Hill, Nottinghamshire, needs some work to bring it into favourable condition. One of the management issues for the site is unpollarded willows next to the site. The Environment Agency no longer has the resources to pollard them and they have grown up to 20 metres in the last 10 years. This makes them a great vantage point for crows to check out their meal ticket, creating a ‘landscape of fear’ for breeding waders.
Unpollarded willows © Carl Cornish
The willow desperately needed pollarding, but if you cut them down what to do with all the willow arisings? It couldn’t be left on the floodplain. Help was at hand in the form of our local biomass project officer. Mark Cleaver. Mark had been brought in by the Humberhead Levels Nature Improvement Area (NIA) team to develop biomass products like reed briquettes, and so encourage sustainable management of wetland sites. Mark suggested converting the willow to biochar with a retort kiln. This ecological patois was new to me, but he explained to me that bio-char was a form of charcoal, and great for soil and carbon neutral. He also suggested doing it in a retort kiln which produces high quality charcoal from green and poor woods like willow, and put me on to Richard Clarke of Woodland Works Ltd.
Working closely with the landowner, Pollybell Organic Farm and Notts Wildlife Trust’s Mark Speck, we got funding from the NIA to employ Richard to cut the tallest willows, and turn them to biochar and charcoal. This gives the following benefits:
Pollarded willows and retort kiln © Jim Lennon
It’s very much an experiment in progress, but has come about because of the willingness of Pollybell Organic Farm, NWT, EA and the RSPB to sort things out on-the-ground and I hope it’s something we can use more in the future and it will inspire others.
Mark Speck, Notts Wildlife Trust, commented, “Thanks to funding from the NIA scheme and the collective enthusiasm of Pollybell Organic Farm, EA, RSPB and NWT conditions for breeding waders on River Idle Washlands Unit 4 have been improved”.
Pollard willows © Carl Cornish