Combatting climate change

One of the central themes of this grant programme is climate change – farmers are invited to develop projects that lower the carbon footprints of their farms. Farmers might choose to create natural areas, such as orchards, hedgerows and ponds, to capture more carbon from the atmosphere, or they might implement better management of grasslands or improve soil health, because healthier soils capture more carbon. These actions also help create bigger, better and more joined up habitats for wildlife across the Chilterns – vital for supporting changes in the movement patterns of wildlife caused by rising global temperatures.

Through the Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme and Wessex Farm Wildlife, 10 farms in the Christmas Common Farm Cluster will carry out 1:1 carbon audit sessions. The farmers will then identify their own individual measures for managing the natural habitats on their farms to sequester carbon. This may include improving soil organic matter, improving feed efficiency, and better fertiliser and manure management. Group members will collaborate and share experience to achieve benefits and a joined up approach across the large area of landscape that their farms cover, in the southern part of the Chilterns.

The Central Chilterns Farmer cluster has planted or improved 13.5 kilometres of hedgerow which helps capture carbon, and over 50,000 new hedgerow trees.

Hedgerow planting also alleviates floods, improves air quality and creates wildlife habitats. Read more about the Central Chilterns Farmer Cluster Hedgerow Planting Project.

Farmer Neil Ashby of Ivinghoe Aston Farm is using 3 years of Farming in Protected Landscapes funding to restore and expand a traditional  orchard.

This will include the planting of 353 new fruit trees (200 apple, 17 hazel, 34 quince, 34 gage, 34 plum, 34 pear). As the trees reach maturity, they will sequester carbon at a conservative rate of 10 tonnes an acre per year totalling 140.4 tonnes per year.

The traditional orchard will provide the habitat of the trees themselves but also the low-input grassland surrounding the trees, with huge benefits for biodiversity. This project will have benefits for the landscape, the farm, wildlife, climate change and local people. Read more about Traditional Orchard Restoration at Ivinghoe Aston Farm.

With funding from the Rothschild Foundation, we supported the Central Chilterns Farmer Cluster to carry out farm carbon assessments on each farm using Farm Carbon Toolkits.

Each cluster on the farm is now identifying and putting into place new measures to reduce the carbon footprint of their farms. This has included purchasing seed drills to enable the direct drilling of seed which reduces the number of tractor passes and the carbon emissions this entails, and improves soil health.  Healthy soils sequester carbon, improving the carbon footprint of the farms. Read more about the Farm Carbon Project.

Farmer David Knight has successfully applied for a Farming in Protected Landscapes grant to establish ‘mob grazing’ (short duration, high-intensity grazing, with a longer than usual grass recovery period), which helps manage chalk grasslands for biodiversity, increasing the resilience of the habitat to change and also helping to store carbon.

Road Farm has successfully applied for a Farming in Protected Landscapes grant to introduce a farm-wide mob grazing system to further improve soil health, reduce the farm’s carbon balance, reduce inputs and emissions and help make the farm more financially resilient in the long term. Permanent grassland locks in carbon. Supporting landowners and farmers with managing grasslands and woodlands well contributes to mitigating the effects of climate change.

The River Ver in drought conditions

More frequent droughts caused by climate change cause low water flows in chalk streams, making the water more vulnerable to heating. Some fish species, such as grayling, are particularly sensitive to this. Warmer conditions may favour invasive species to the detriment of native animals, or may provide the conditions needed for more invasive species to arrive. It is usual for parts of chalk streams to dry-up completely during droughts, but this will become an increasingly common occurrence, changing the natural flows and fluctuations of the watercourses. In addition, pollutants in the water, such as sewage or road or agricultural run-off, are more concentrated in low-flow conditions.

Intense rainfall events can cause floods and also wash pollutants, soil and sediment into rivers. This smothers gravels on the stream beds, which are important for fish spawning and invertebrates.

Shading from trees, plants and shrubs can help to keep our chalk streams at the right temperatures, so native planting schemes in the right places can be helpful. Habitat restoration and enhancement forms part of the work of our Chilterns Chalk Streams Project, helping to improve the streams for wildlife and people.

Abstraction for domestic water use needs to be reduced or ceased. We are part of the Chalk Streams First (CSF) scheme, a coalition of conservation and river organisations which proposes an almost complete cessation of abstraction. CSF have proposed the relocation of water extraction to surface water sources in a plan that would restore chalk stream flows, protect the streams’ ecology and resilience to climate change, and ensure the resilience of public water supply.

Read more about wetlands under threat.

The Chilterns is renowned for its woodland, which covers 23.74% of the area. Much of this contains important wildlife and archaeology. 56% is classed as ancient woodland, which has been under constant management for more than 400 years. Trees and woodlands are important ‘carbon sinks’, capturing carbon from the atmosphere and helping offset our carbon emissions. Because of this, deforestation is a major contributor to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions as it removes this carbon sink.

Threats to our woodlands from climate change range from direct habitat loss to more indirect influences, such as providing the right conditions for new or imported diseases and non-native species to take hold. Increasing temperatures are also changing the composition of our habitats, and affecting seasonal events: spring is arriving earlier, so breeding woodland birds are out of sync with food availability; summer drought is stressing trees, causing leaf loss and damage; and trees are susceptible to being blown over in more extreme winter weather events.

To ensure the resilience of our woodlands, protect them as a carbon sink, and to increase carbon capture, it is important that no woodland in the Chilterns is lost to building works or infrastructure. Our Planning Team strives to influence this. One of our Management Plan objectives is to ensure there is no net loss of woodland and no loss of irreplaceable ancient woodland, ancient trees and veteran trees within the Chilterns. This will help protect woodlands as carbon stores.

The Colchester Declaration, an agreement between all National Landscapes in the UK, includes a collective promise to increase woodland cover. We always advise that tree planting is carried out with the motto: ‘the right tree in the right place’ – this ensures that tree planting positively contributes to Chilterns’ biodiversity and landscape character at the same time as capturing carbon.

Read more about woodlands under threat.

Grasslands are under threat from rising temperatures and extreme weather events. Drought leads to soil degradation and changes in species composition (for instance, plants suited to warmer climes may out-compete more delicate plants), while extreme rainfall and waterlogging increases soil moisture and vegetation growth (particularly stress-tolerant plants). Both pose problems for agricultural production, as well, as the timing and amount of planting, grazing and haymaking, which are integral to the health and composition of many of our grassland habitats, may change with changing conditions.

Initiatives that are carbon-friendly can sometimes have a negative impact on other aspects of wildlife and habitats. For instance, tree-planting in the wrong place, such as on species-rich grasslands, can inadvertently cause damage to these fragile ecosystems.

On the other side of the coin, grasslands are a first line of defence against climate change: the world’s grasslands hold a third of all terrestrial carbon. Well-managed, permanent grassland locks in carbon from the atmosphere, whether this is species-rich chalk grassland with low soil nutrient levels, or intensive grassland (areas where more fertilisers are used). Species-rich grasslands also reduce the impact of climate change by reducing flood risk and soil erosion, and providing food for pollinators. Yet, in the UK alone, more than 97% (3 million ha) of grassland habitats have been lost.

Grasslands are vitally important for climate change reduction and mitigation, as well as for biodiversity and landscape character. We are working with farmers and landowners to improve the management of grasslands to lock-in carbon from the atmosphere. This includes scrub clearance – such as the work our Chalk, Cherries and Chairs project has contributed to – and helping to implement good grazing techniques, such as the ‘mob grazing’ (short duration, high-intensity grazing, with a longer than usual grass recovery period) that will be implemented on Road Farm and David Knight’s Farm.

Read more about grasslands and heaths under threat.