2,500 native hedgerow plants and 25 oak trees have been planted on three shoots in Cheshire by members of the UK’s largest shooting organisation, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) after a grant of £1,552 was received from the Tree Council’s Real Hedge fund.
The new plantings, totalling 500 metres, help to link up areas of woodland with other hedgerows on each of the shoots, providing wildlife corridors for quarry species and other birds, insects and mammals.
Over the last 12 months, BASC’s Green Shoots programme has also created more than 800 metres of new hedgerows and filled gaps of more than two kilometres on the shoots.
The work will go some way to achieving the targets set out under the Cheshire region Biodiversity Partnership’s programme of biodiversity actions which aims to have a healthier and more wildlife-friendly area by 2020.
Ben Gregory, BASC’s Cheshire project officer, said: “With 2010 being the International Year of Biodiversity, it’s vitally important that the conservation work shooters do is recognised. Engaging with other conservation partners such as the Tree Council not only enables some fantastic conservation work to be done, it also ensures BASC and shooting sports in general is recognised as a key player in biodiversity conservation.”
ENDS