Toolkit to create 6,000 miles of wildlife-friendly corridors across the UK

Wednesday 5th June

Share this article

Toolkit to create 6,000 miles of wildlife-friendly corridors across the UK

Wildlife is always on the move – searching for food, for a mate and, in response to climate change, for more favourable environmental conditions. Mammals, insects and other wildlife use human routeways to move across the landscape, from bats following the tree line of a country lane to butterflies stopping off to feed on flowers growing along road verges. Projects such as Buglife’s B-Lines project, which created ‘insect superhighways’ to benefit bees and other pollinators, have shown routeways can be managed to do more for wildlife.

Away from the road network, deeper into the countryside and along our coastline, many more miles of footpaths, bridleways, and other tracks crisscross the country. This off-road network includes our National Trails, some of the best-loved recreational routes in the world. Once the newest National Trail, the King Charles III England Coast Path, is completed, the National Trails network will cover over 6,000 miles of England, Wales, and Scotland.

National Trails are connectors for people and important connectors for nature, linking city centres to semi-scrub and farming countryside. Significantly, they connect biodiversity hotspots, including Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Local Wildlife Sites. Our National Trails have the potential to be corridors for wildlife movement, which are incredibly important for the UK's ecological network, especially during the biodiversity and climate crises. Routes aligned north to south may benefit wildlife since climate change forces species to move northwards to find suitable habitats.

Maydencroft’s Nature Recovery Team is proud to work with National Trails UK, the independent champion for the National Trails, and Trail Officers nationwide to produce a Nature Recovery Toolkit. As Sarah Wright, Nature Recovery Consultant, explains, “To help National Trails do more for biodiversity and set a standard to inspire action across the wider network of off-road routeways, we are creating a toolkit setting out what practical measures for habitats and species are possible in a linear access corridor and where best to target effort and resources across the Trails network. With this toolkit, projects can be developed with landowners and other partners, including National Parks, National Landscapes and local authority rights of way teams.”

Polly Martin, Chief Executive of National Trails UK, says, “Connecting people to nature has been central to the National Trails, our ‘natural health service’, since their creation in 1949. Over the years, some projects have successfully been undertaken to restore our national trails' habitats and landscapes. Still, our members are keen to do more for nature through transformative projects supporting nature recovery in some of our most special places. I’m delighted that support from the Protected Landscapes Partnership has made this toolkit possible and will make it easier for the National Trails to deliver for nature and people.’”

The National Trails Nature Recovery Toolkit will be published this year. To find out more, contact Sarah Wright in our Nature Recovery Team.

To find out more about National Trails, visit www.nationaltrail.co.uk

loading