The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) awarded a £48,000 grant to a partnership of local councils for this new project which will protect, conserve, and celebrate the importance of hedgerows to our natural environment. The funding is being used to bring together 10 councils to deliver conservation and heritage training activities for local communities to enable them to restore and manage these natural heritage assets.
Hedgerows are a priority habitat in Northern Ireland that can support over 170 species of trees, plants, animals, birds and invertebrates. This project is identifying hedgerows that have lost their wildlife value and teaching people how to restore and manage them. Conservation skills are passed on to local community groups, land managers and children through practical training sessions and workshops. At least 1 kilometre of hedgerows will be restored throughout the project within the Causeway Coast and Glens Council Cluster.
Participants also learn how to identify species rich hedgerows and how they can support a wide and varied range of biodiversity, such as specialist plants, nesting birds, feeding bats and butterflies throughout their life cycles. The importance of hedgerows to our culture, history and farming practices as well as their impact on helping to secure the future of our native species, will also be explored.
Several successful hedgerow restoration training events and survey sessions have taken place already through out 2012 and 2013, with over 500m of native hedgerows restored to date. We are looking for more groups and sites to work with, if you are interested please contact Rachel Bain, Biodiversity Officer.
For more information on our native hedgerows download our hedgerows grow west leaflet.