Living Landscapes
Ouse Valley Living Landscape
Scheme area: 3,000 hectares
Benefits include: habitat restoration, flood alleviation, recreational opportunities for local communities and visitors
The slow-flowing River Great Ouse meanders through a landscape of flood meadows, grazing marsh and wet woodland, punctuated by gravel pits and market towns. It includes England’s largest ancient hay meadow at Port Holme, a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive, and flows down to the internationally protected Ouse Washes, famed for their breeding birds, including ducks such as garganey and waders including black-tailed godwit, redshank and lapwing.
In winter, the Washes are alive with hundreds of thousands of wintering ducks, geese and swans, including whooper and Bewick’s swans from the high Arctic. In recent years, little egret have begun to breed on the Washes too. The meadows include rare species such as snake’s-head fritillary, marsh dandelion and marsh and green-winged orchids. The river itself is one of a handful of breeding sites for scarce chaser dragonfly in Britain and holds populations the depressed river mussel, a national Biodiversity Action Plan species.
The Ouse Valley Living Landscape Project aims to create a network of species-rich flood meadows, floodplain grazing marsh and wet woodland alongside the Ouse Valley from St Neots, via Huntingdon and St Ives, to the Ouse Washes. The main approach is through the expansion and management of existing nature reserves, through targeted advice to the owners of Local Wildlife Sites. A successful initiative supported by the Rural Enterprise Scheme involves: seed harvesting from species-rich meadows, such as Port Holme; multiplying the seed in cultivation, then using the seed to aid the restoration of ‘improved’ meadows; and through the creation of wet grassland for breeding and wintering waterbirds. Long-distance footpaths already lead local people through the Valley, and the growing populations within the Stansted-Cambridge-Peterborough Growth Area will benefit from access to even more high-quality landscapes in the future. This is a partnership project between the Wildlife Trust, Huntingdonshire District Council, Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency.
Click here to listen to Brian Eversham, Chief Executive, explaining Living Landscapes and what it means for our three counties.
Click here for a map of the Living Landscape project areas.