The Renewing the Alde Project was part of a national Habitat Restoration Project. The aim of the project was to investigate ways of increasing the biodiversity of wildlife in our countryside. The project aims to investigate the extent to which Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) can be met using existing Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS). It aimed to focus on reversing the effects of habitat fragmentation. The benefits to wildlife were to be monitored over a ten year period. In Suffolk a trial area of 100 squared kilometres was established where practical habitat restoration was to be encouraged in cooperation with farmers and other landowners. The Trial Area was situated on land around the Alde Estuary on the Suffolk coast. The area contains a wide variety of semi-natural habitats of high conservation value in addition to extensive areas of intensively managed farmland. Experience gained from the trial area will allow conservation organisations to target the most effective means of reversing habitat deterioration and fragmentation using the current schemes and to identify any constraints which may prevent this from being achieved. This document set out the vision, presented the information on which it is based and also presented ways of implementing it over the next ten years. Key habitats which occur in the Alde trial area included: lowland heathland; lowland dry acid grassland; coastal and floodplain grazing marshes; reedbeds; estuarine habitats; ancient and/or species-rich hedgerows; cereal field margins; coastal vegetated shingle; saline lagoons.
A printed copy of this old English Nature report is available from our Enquiry Service. Tel: 0845 600 3078 Email: enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk