Following the Government's recent response to the Glover Review of Protected Landscapes, we are publishing three guest blogs from different National Parks and AONBs looking at their support for nature. In the first Andrea Kelly, Environment Policy Adviser, looks at how the Broads Authority is working with a new board of farmers and land managers to help design all-new post-Brexit payment schemes, for sustainable farming and Nature Recovery. ... The majority of the Broads – a unique mosaic of marshland, lakes and rivers covering 303 square kilometres – is in private ownership by farmers. Compounded by the urgent need to address climate change, prevent biodiversity and soil deterioration, the challenges faced by land managers will only be met through partnership working.
The National Park boasts over a quarter of the UK’s rarest wildlife and although conservation work plays some role in maintaining this complex ecological balance, land managers, farmers and reed-cutters are key in Nature Recovery. The Government aim to create a national network of wildlife-rich places, including the restoration of 75% of protected areas.
Since the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, a new agricultural payment system, known as the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELM) is being developed by Defra and partners. The new scheme recognises that land is worth more than its agricultural value alone and aims to provide payment for goods and services that benefit the public. These goods – such as carbon storage, clean air and water, flooding protection and biodiversity – are known as natural capital. ELM replaces agricultural payments from the EU and looks to reward farmers for enhancing natural capital, offering the highest payments where the greatest benefits for wildlife can be achieved.
'Test and Trials’ of ELM are taking place in the Broads. Since 2019 the Authority and partners, has connected with nearly 300 farmers and land managers to agree on local priorities, inform payments, coordinate advise provision and seek private investment to support new ELM public payments. The Broads was the birth-place of agri-environment incentives schemes, starting in 1985 to stop the ploughing up of Halvergate marshes, followed by the Broads Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) scheme from 1987. These schemes halted ploughing, allowing declining wildlife populations to rebuild, such as raft spiders, water vole, and birds including lapwing, bittern and marsh harrier. They also captured carbon over the longer term through rewetting peat soils. Under the new ELM scheme, farmers and land managers decide how they recover nature. For example, they could choose to raise water levels and create wet woodland pockets for wetland species; encourage longer grass and reedbed areas for mammals, which in turn support owls and raptors, or retain livestock to manage grassland suitable for nesting birds, such as the lapwing, redshank.
Harvesting reed and sedge also creates refuges for birds like the thriving crane populations that have returned to the Broads since the 1970s. The Authority hopes these benefits will be rewarded in the new scheme.
This year, the Authority, working with Norfolk Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), has advised 14 farmers on accessing existing farm payments and on farming for nature recovery. As well as discussing different management options, they advised on educational access, fen and scrub management, woodland creation and re-wilding to create wider public benefits.
The next steps are to develop local priorities for Nature Recovery. All 15 of the UK’s National Parks are targets for peatland and grassland restoration, woodland enhancement, and habitat creation. The Authority is also partnering with global impact firm Palladium, who have expertise in the Amazonian biodiversity projects using private/public finance models. This partnership will help secure substantial investment necessary to achieve Nature Recovery in National Parks by 2030.