Precious reedbed habitats are in decline across Broadland and iconic species such as swallowtail butterfly and fen orchid could be lost forever, the Broads Authority (BA) has been warned.
Landowner Tim Harris, who owns a large part of Catfield Fen, raised the issue at a meeting of the full authority and questioned what was being done about it - warning of the potential devastating impact on tourism.
He said that for five years he had been a lone wolf in highlighting the ecological changes on his own site - described by the Environment Agency (EA) as ‘the finest unpolluted valley fen in western Europe’ - but his evidence of decline had now been confirmed by an in-depth study of the neighbouring Butterfly Conservation reserve managed by the RSPB.
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