New national nature recovery partnership to target Peak District landscape and habitat restoration

The White Peak Partnership is one of more than 600 organisations joining forces as the Nature Recovery Network Delivery Partnership, to restore at least 500,000 hectares of across England.

Partners in the public, private and third sectors will co-ordinate their efforts to provide funding and land to help threatened animal and plant species and create and connect new green and blue spaces such as wetlands, ponds, meadows, woodlands, and peatlands.

Dave Parker, East Midlands area manager for lead partner Natural England, said: “The intricate pattern of drystone walls and green fields that characterise the White Peak was once described to me as a landscape of beautiful picture frames with no pictures.

“We intend to change this by trialling practical and cost-effective methods which unleash nature from its refuge in the steep-sided dales.”

He added: “Creating a nature recovery network across the farmed plateau will boost wildlife, store carbon and show the way for future farming here by improving soil health and maintaining productivity whilst reducing input costs.

"These are bold ambitions, but they are collaborative and co-designed with farmers and other partners including the Peak District National Park Authority.”

Planned projects will respond to challenges identified in Sir John Lawton’s 2010 Government report Making Space for Nature, which named the White Peak for having ‘the highest levels of fragmentation of any English National Park.’

In 2017, the White Peak Partnership mapped out a recovery blueprint which has already led to land acquisitions by the National Trust, a £5million project on ravine woodlands, and a five-year trial testing practical approaches to restoration on farmland.

Rosemary Furness, a participating local livestock farmer, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for farmers to show what they can do for nature by working together. We never imagined two of our intensively managed silage fields could support this much wildlife in the space of just one year.”