Frequently asked questions

We want to work with farmers and landowners more closely than ever - supporting their work and advising on wildlife friendly practices. 

This partnership will enable us to deliver one of our key strategic goals - to create and enhance 5,000 hectares for wildlife and the climate in Gloucestershire, making productive farmland more permeable to wildlife. This is essential to expanding our work across the county to stop and reverse wildlife declines, beyond the boundaries of the nature reserves we care for. 

Over 70% of and in Gloucestershire is dedicated to farming. What we eat and the way we farm it plays a central role in tackling the climate and nature emergencies. 

We're looking for farmers and landowners to join a new Advisory Group to help shape our plans to secure nature’s recovery in the county.

We have a great track record working with farmers and landowners on projects like Natural Flood Management and in the Golden Valley. However, in order to create bigger, better and more connected landscapes for wildlife, we want to work in an even closer partnership with the county’s landowners and farmers.

The group is chaired by Richard White, a GWT Trustee and a former Chair of the Gloucestershire CLA, which represents landowners in the county. GWT's Lead Farm Advisor, Tim Bevan, is keen to hear from anyone who’s interested in joining the new group: “This is an incredible time of change for Gloucestershire’s farmers. The new Agriculture Act is completely changing the way farmers are supported, with much more focus on delivering environmental benefits. There’s still massive uncertainty, but with the right support - farmers could be the heroes of nature’s recovery in Gloucestershire.”

We've also been working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on a trial to inform a new national Environmental Land Management scheme, leading a partnership of five Wildlife Trusts engaging farmers to see how the new scheme can create more space for nature in Gloucestershire’s farmland.

If you are a farmer or landowner and are interested in learning more about the Advisory Group, please contact tim.bevan@gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk. 

We're proud to have been working along side farmers and landowners for many years. Increasingly, we're working at scale to improve not just habitats for wildlife, but entire landscapes. 

In Stroud's Golden Valley, we've been creating a network with neighbouring landowners that improves, expands and connects wild places. This has already been rewarded with a number of wildlife success stories - including the pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly making a comeback to the area after 20 years in 2020, as well as expanding populations of pot beetles and glow worms.

As well as offering practical advice on wildlife friendly farming and land management techniques, we also set up a conservation grazing regime across multiple sites to aid with scrub control and encourage wildflower growth. We'll be continuing to support farmers to create management plans to help them manage their land, providing regular surveying and monitoring services to ensure the management plan is having the impact needed on local wildlife. 

Across Gloucestershire, our Natural Flood Management (NFM) team have been working with landowners and farmers to carry out flood prevention work. 

NFM is an approach that seeks to store flood water and ‘slow the flow’ of water reaching the river channel by altering or restoring the landscape. NFM techniques provide enhanced water storage during a storm event, using natural materials to engineer structures that temporarily hold rainwater in the headwaters. The creation of bunds and ponds with extra capacity, for example, provides temporary storage and helps to reduce the speed and the peak flow going downstream. After the storm event, water can then drain away slowly.

Other techniques include tree planting, river restoration and the installation of leaky dams.

Often it's necessary for these techniques to be utilised on land that isn't owned by GWT, which means a close partnership with landowners and farmers to help tackle local flooding. 

We think that the practices used by regenerative agriculture systems can deliver for wildlife. There is no agreed or accepted definition for regenerative agriculture nor is there any legal or regulatory definition. It has been proposed as an alternative means of producing food that has lower or even net positive environmental and social impacts.

At its core is generally a desire to restore and enhance soil health by increasing the carbon content to improve productivity. There are processes common to farms that use the term, and can include reducing or eliminating tillage - such as ploughing, use of cover crops, integrating livestock and reducing synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. 

This is a really big topic, but here are a few ideas to get you started. For a soil to support a plant’s root system and recycle nutrients, it needs to have good carbon or organic matter content. This provides a food source for the soil’s living organisms, which then recycle nutrients to supply plant roots.

Adding carbon to soil can be done by applying manures, composts or incorporating cereal straws. It’s important not to leave soil exposed for long periods as carbon can be lost to the atmosphere as it oxidises. Keeping living plant roots in the soil for as much of the year as possible is very beneficial to its health, as roots exude products into the soil

Disturbing soils, by practices such as ploughing and rotavating, exposes the soil carbon to the atmosphere and disrupts a soil’s structure. Try to use alternatives if possible, such as direct drilling or reducing the frequency.

Growing over winter cover crops is very beneficial to soil health as using longer term break crops in an arable rotation can lift the levels of a soil’s organic matter effectively if grown for a period of three years. Mixes of clovers, herbs and grasses with various rooting depths are likely to give the best results as they can add carbon throughout the soil profile.

Herbal leys are seed mixes typically containing about 10-20 species of grasses, herbs and legumes such as red clover, burnet, chicory, sainfoin, yarrow, fescues, perennial ryegrass and ribwort plantain.

They can be mown or grazed and provide multiple benefits. Grown in an arable rotation they can lift soil quality and add nitrogen for the benefit of following cash crops, and can help to control black grass, particularly if grazed. Reintroducing livestock may be difficult on some farms, however this can be done by leasing the crop to a contract grazier using electric fences if necessary.

Livestock farms can produce top quality forage for milk production, and for finishing lambs and cattle. Some species in the herbal ley mix can reduce the need to treat stock for internal parasites. The deep rooting depth of many species included in the mixes also means these leys are tolerant to drought.

The pollen and nectar provided by the flowering plants in the mixes can increase insect abundance. Growing these leys for several years should also benefit soil dwelling organisms - supporting the soil ecosystem. Improving soil health and increasing the organic matter content makes the soil more resilient to drought and reduces water run-off and the risk of flooding.

If you select the correct seed mixes these leys are also supported by stewardship payments. At present that is option GS4 Legume and herb rich swards under Countryside Stewardship. The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) standards are due to open in June this year and these are also planned to support mixes of grasses legumes, herbs and wildflowers under the Improved Grassland Soils standard.

Cutting hedges on a rotation is best, so that the same hedge is not cut every year. This is important as most of the blossom, flowers, berries and nuts only form on branches or twigs that are a year old. This is valuable not only for insects that require the flowers and blossom for nectar and pollen, but also providing berries and nuts for birds and mammals to feed on. Only climbing plants such as brambles and dog rose produce flowers and fruit in hedges cut annually.

Allowing hedges to grow larger by less frequent cutting will enable them to support more wildlife, for example by providing more protection for breeding birds. Occasional cutting to keep hedges thick and bushy is helpful to many birds and dormice.

The best time to cut hedges is generally in January and February when wildlife has had time to feed on the nuts and berries.

The bases of hedgerows can be good places for flowering plants and invertebrates - so having a wide buffer along the hedgerow which is not sprayed or fertilised will protect these.  

Repairing and relaying old hedges that have lots of gaps in the base can recreate the dense structure favoured by certain birds and mammals. Allowing them to grow out for several years gives long lengths of sticks to lay back into the hedge.

Tall hedges will also provide shade for livestock in hot summer months, this may become more important in the future as we experience a warming climate.

In a nutshell, agroforestry is the planting of perennial trees and/or shrubs within annual crops or into pasture. This can provide two crops from the same area with hopefully a net overall gain in production.

The environmental gains from agroforestry include:

• Carbon sequestration aiding climate change mitigation
• Biodiversity gain
• Soil health improvements
• Air and water quality enhancements.

The trees grown in agroforestry systems can supply an income from timber, firewood, fruit and nuts. This, together with the output from the surrounding crop or grazing between the trees, can supply an overall net gain even with a loss of yield in the crop.

The trees with deeper rooting systems than arable crops can bring up nutrients from deeper in the soil and can then make these available to crops in the form of leaf litter. Nutrients in the soil not captured by crop roots can be used by tree roots - reducing the risk of them being washed away into waterways.

Trees can provide shelter to livestock in pastoral systems and can also modify the microclimate by reducing wind speed, as well as reducing evaporation and water loss from crops. All important as we face hotter and longer summers.