Member Article

All you need is grass

Northumberland Wildlife Trust will be hosting the Northern Grasslands Conference on Thursday 9 March.

The free event, to be held at the Centre for Life, Newcastle, between 9:00am –1:00 pm will offer members of the public the opportunity to find out more about grassland and meadows management, community grazing schemes, green roofs, the key issues facing species rich grasslands and the best ways to engage communities in local grassland projects, via a series of talks and workshops.

Naomi Waite, Northumberland Wildlife Trust Conservation Officer and conference organiser says: “Since the 1930’s we have lost 97% (nearly 7.5 million acres) of meadows and grasslands and the wildflowers and wildlife associated with them.

“Every year more and more meadows are lost through neglect, change of land use or development which affects our native wildflowers. Needless to say this conference is a great opportunity for us to spread the word about how fragile our meadows are and what we can do to try and protect them, and, better still it’s free to attend, so come and join us.”

Numbers are limited so booking is essential. Log on at: www.nwt.org.uk/whats-on to secure a place.

The event is part of the Save our Magnificent Meadows project, a UK-wide partnership project, supported thanks to National Lottery players. It is the UK’s largest partnership project transforming the fortunes of our vanishing wildflower meadows, grasslands and wildlife, led by Plantlife and primarily funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

The project is bringing meadows back to life, with the restoration of over 14,000 acres of wildflower meadows across the UK. Working with landowners, volunteers, farmers and trainees nearly 47,000 people have been actively engaged with the project to date.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sue Bishop .