We’ve just achieved the first milestone of our design stage with a preliminary baseline of the condition and extent of the catchment’s ‘natural capital’ – a term in the nature restoration lexicon that describes the habitats and ecosystems that provide social, environmental and economic benefits to humans.
Undertaken for us by Palladium, it details the different habitats in the catchment and the opportunities to generate ‘ecosystem services’ – the direct and indirect contributions ecosystems provide for human well-being and quality of life – in particular via woodland creation and peatland restoration.
As a first step to understand which areas are suitable for woodland creation, Palladium first mapped all the areas where woodland planting would not be suitable for legal or environmental reasons. Then they mapped where the soils were suitable for tree planting and finally they created a map that showed the possibilities ranked from excellent flexibility to very limited flexibility. They also did a similar exercise on areas for potential peatland restoration.
We’ll be using all this information to begin talking to all the different stakeholders in the catchment about interests and possibilities, starting with our farmers and estate owners.
If you would like to be part of this conversation, please get in touch via the contact page.
