Member Article

Putting the region's meadows back on the map

• Wildflower meadows are vanishing; 97% have been lost since the 1930s
• A single healthy meadow can be home to over 80 species of wild flowers

National Meadows Day (1) dedicated to celebrating and protecting our vanishing wildflower meadows and the wealth of wildlife they support, will take place on Saturday 1 July 2017. This year’s National Meadows Day will be the biggest yet, with over 100 events (2) taking place across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

From barefoot walks and scything workshops, to picnics and bug hunts, people will have the opportunity to experience first-hand the petalled-paradise that is a meadow in summer.

To celebrate this wonderful day, Northumberland Wildlife Trust will be hosting a Magical Meadows Day at Northumberlandia in Northumberland on Saturday 1 July, between 11:00am - 3:00pm. So why not go along and hear stories of magical meadows in a tipi, walk around the wild flowers surrounding the ‘Lady of the North’ and join in a number of arts and crafts activities?

There is no need to book, just turn up and better still, it’s free!

National Meadows Day is the headline event of Save Our Magnificent Meadows (3), the UK’s largest partnership project transforming the fortunes of our vanishing wildflower meadows, grasslands and wildlife. Plantlife, supported by money raised by National Lottery players with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) (4), is spearheading the project.

Naomi Waite, Northumberland Wildlife Trust Conservation Officer and Save our Magnificent Meadows Project Officer said:

“Meadows, once a feature of every parish in Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside are now an increasingly fragile part of our national heritage but all is not lost. National Meadows Day is the perfect way to explore and enjoy the flowers and wildlife of the region’s magnificent meadows and understand their special place in our shared social and cultural history.

“Beyond being a quintessential sight of summer, meadows’ value to our wildlife cannot be overstated - a single healthy meadow can be home to over 80 species of wild flowers, such as cuckoo flower, yellow rattle, orchids, knapweed and scabious, compared to most modern agricultural pasture which typically supports under a dozen species.” Just 100 years ago there would have been a meadow in every Northumberland parish, supporting a way of life that had gone on for centuries. They provided grazing and hay for livestock, employment, and food and medicine for the parish and were part of a community’s cultural and social history. Today, just 3% of the meadows that existed in the 1930’s remain (5) - that’s a loss of 7.5 million acres of wild flower grassland.

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