PUBLISHED: 14:20 15 August
2018 | UPDATED: 14:20 15 August 2018
Straddling the Norfolk and
Suffolk border, The Brecks is one of the most unusual lowland landscapes in the
UK and one of its most important areas for wildlife.
The unique landscape that
developed from an ancient landscape of sandy, chalky soils, shallow rivers,
open heaths, sheep walks and medieval rabbit warrens covers 1,000 sq km and is
home to more than 12,800 species.
Comprising conifer plantations
and large fields edged with lines of crooked pines, rare species include birds
such as the nightjar and woodlark as well as 65% of the UK’s stone curlews.
Now a new ambitious project that
aims to help restore and protect its at-risk wildlife and habitats will be
launched this weekend at Brandon Country Park.
Shifting Sands is one of 19
projects around the country under the umbrella of the collaborative Back from
the Brink programme which aims to save some of the nation’s rarest wildlife.
It will work with volunteers and
partner organisations in Norfolk and Suffolk to restore more than 15 areas of
grass heath recreating the open, sparsely vegetated conditions required by many
birds, reptiles, plants and insects that live or breed there.
Natural England’s project officer
for Shifting Sands, Phoebe Miles, said: “The Brecks is a very special landscape
that is home to over a quarter of the UK’s rare and declining species, but it
needs our help. Over 75% of its grass heaths have been lost in the past
century.”
The project will directly benefit
14 vulnerable and endangered species including woodlark, the wormwood
moonshiner beetle, its food plant Breckland wormwood and prostrate perennial knawel
- a small plant that exists nowhere else in the world.
Ms Miles said heaths for hundreds
of years were home to rabbits that proved great habitat managers, but they are
now in sharp decline.
“We aim to boost rabbit
populations on these heaths so that rare plants and their associated insects
can re-colonise the more open, rabbit-disturbed ground,” she said.
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