Moray Farm Cluster has been awarded £185,000 from the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund administered by NatureScot.
Concerned about the resilience of their businesses in the face of an uncertain environmental and policy future, the project aims to integrate habitat connectivity with farming activities to deliver significant nature and climate outcomes. The project aligns with the Moray Biodiversity Action Plan and addresses key environmental challenges such as habitat fragmentation, climate vulnerability, and the spread of invasive non-native species (INNS).
Over the next year, the cluster will establish monitoring baselines and undertake scoping for nature restoration across 6,600 ha. This involves conducting ecological and hydrological surveys to produce designs and costs for all of the propose interventions. The efforts will focus on:
- Landscape-Scale Habitat Network: Creating and restoring lowland habitats for pollinators, amphibians, mammals, and birds within a working agricultural landscape.
- Wetland, Watercourse and Floodplain Restoration: Enhancing watercourse functions and floodplain resilience to mitigate extreme weather impacts.
- Enhancing climate resilience: mplement solutions like reconnecting rivers to floodplains and restoring natural watercourse profiles, and increasing natural features to reduce topsoil loss.
- INNS Control:Prevent the spread of invasive species like Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed, Himalayan balsam, which threaten local protected areas such as Loch Spynie and Balormie Marsh RAMSAR sites.
The grant is also funding the infrastructure for conservation grazing of cattle using NoFence collars, and we will be working with the RSPB Scotland & other local organisations to design interventions that will benefits wildlife and habitats with this technology.
The wider aims of the project include:
- Establishing collaborative relationships between land managers for enhanced habitat management.
- Demonstrating cost-effective delivery of public goods in a productive agricultural landscape.
- Developing solutions for climate resilience that can be adopted more widely.
Sylvestris will act as project managers and facilitators of the project and will be undertaking discussions with funders to support the delivery of this ambitious project. The goal is to pave the way for other similar groups to follow suit and contribute to nature restoration.
This project is a significant step towards large-scale nature restoration and climate resilience in the Moray region, benefiting both biodiversity and agricultural productivity.
Funding provided by:
