Eight million pound lottery boost for innovative Great Fen farming project

An innovative eco friendly farming project near Peterborough has been given an £8 million funding boost.

The money for the Great Fen Project’s Peatland Progress scheme has come from the The National Lottery Heritage Fund Heritage Horizon programme, and will see scientists, academics, business people and land managers come together to see the benefits of ‘wet farming’ – a more environmentally way of farming.

A new land purchase, Speechly’s Farm, near Ramsey, is enabling the next big step, uniting the Great Fen’s northern and southern halves, creating a sustainable, wildlife-filled, working wet landscape. In this 120 hectare area Peatland Progress will expand a new model of agricultural production, wet farming - or paludiculture.

This work will inform and inspire both conservation and farming practice on peat soils across the UK and further afield, with the new wet landscape preventing the loss of peat soils and locking in carbon dioxide.

Kate Carver, Great Fen Project Manager, says: “Peatland Progress will enable us to build on our successes, to grasp a unique opportunity to connect two iconic wetland reserves, and to elevate our activity to new levels - through farming innovations, research, and through a deeper connection with established and new audiences. This will raise the Great Fen from being a landscape transforming access to wildlife in the local area, to a forward-looking place which impacts on, inspires and brings genuine improvement to the lives of people and protects the very character and local heritage of a region.”

The project is also working with local groups, including the Young People’s Counselling Service (YPCS) in Yaxley, to create nature-based interventions and programmes supporting young people experiencing mental health issues and their families.

Alison Graham, chair of YPCS, said: “YPCS are first and foremost a charity that provides counselling but if we can achieve other gains in this exciting partnership with the Wildlife Trust, and engage young people in the natural world by igniting a passion for conservation and open horizons to hope and the future, then we are part of a very rich intervention indeed.’’