Wheatland Farm has pledged £100 in support of the North Devon Biosphere Reserve’s nature improvement projects. Will you join us?
The challenge is big. Yes, Devon is wonderful, but it’s under pressure like everywhere else. Volunteers, wildlife-friendly farmers and businesses like ours are already working to conserve nature – but we can’t do enough. Everyone needs to take heed, and make more space for nature. Can you chip in? By donating for the Pledge for Nature! initiative you will be helping to:
- improve nature in pastures and arable land – benefiting wildflowers and insects and helping birds like cuckoos, barn owls and skylarks
- plant more trees and woodlands and manage our hedges better – to help a myriad of wildlife and the fight against climate change
- make gardens and public spaces more wildlife-friendly – so that butterflies and bees, hedgehogs and slow-worms can flourish
- improve the quality of our rivers, streams and estuary – so they become thriving ecosystems, once more full of salmon, seatrout, freshwater pearl mussels and other species
Wheatland Farm is within the North Devon Biosphere Reserve (we’re in the transition zone), so this is our ‘back yard’. We couldn’t possibly not be involved. And we get a reward too – our contribution secures a talk to local school children by Dr Mike Moser, local and international conservationist (and also the supplier of the sustainable cladding and timber we used for Balebarn Lodge). Reaching children is the is the perfect way to get the next generation involved. We are delighted to help.
The crowdfunder is aiming for a little under £10,000 – but it will take more than that. However, with local contributions to show people care, the organisers will be asking the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a grant of £6 to match every £1 raised. So this could be powerful.
This crowdfunder, run by the North Devon Biosphere Foundation, is endorsed by the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Partnership. Pledge for Nature! will be implemented through the Biosphere Nature Improvement Group (Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Devon Biodiversity Records Centre, Devon County Council, Devon Hedge Group, Devon Wildlife Trust, Environment Agency, Exmoor National Park, Forestry Commission, National Trust, Natural England, North Devon Coast AONB, North Devon District Council, North Devon Biosphere Reserve, RSPB, Westcountry Rivers Trust, Woodland Trust).
The North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Reserve includes the Taw and Torridge river systems and all the land that drains into them from Exmoor to Dartmoor and out to the North Devon Coast as far as Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel. The core area is the spectacular dune system of Braunton Burrows