A Living Landscape

The Devon Wildlife Trust has an ambitious vision for the county – to rebuild biodiversity to create a vibrant and wildlife rich Living Landscape.

The Big Plan
‘A Living Landscape is one of the biggest conservation plans in British history.  It will restore natural areas by reassembling damaged and fragmented blocks of woodland, meadows and marshes.  It will reconnect the living tissues – the streams, and hedges and waysides – that link them to the pockets of wildness in our towns and villages.  It will rebuild nature in our midst and put it to work for us.  A reinvigorated natural world will become our ally in coping with environmental threats.’
From ‘A Living Landscape – the bigger picture’, South West Wildlife Trusts 2008

Making the vision a reality
The Devon Wildlife Trust is working hard to turn the vision of a county-wide Living Landscape into a reality.  Landscape restoration projects, at a scale never before attempted in the county, are being established.  

• In north and west Devon Working Wetlands covering 65,000 hectares are being restored and re-created
• In Exeter, an ambitious city-wide project is under way based on the principle that the health and wealth of human society is dependent on a healthy and vibrant natural environment
• In south Devon, a project is being developed in the Avon Valley which is a Strategic Nature Area with a SSSI at its heart.  Woodlands and hedgerows will be restored and grassland habitat re-created
• The Northern Devon NIA is a partnership project led by DWT on behalf of the North Devon Biosphere Reserve Partnership and covers 72,000 hectares. It aims to restore and re-create a wildlife-rich area across Northern Devon’s Torridge river catchment.

Other projects at a landscape scale are being planned and are likely to include river valley, lowland heath and standing water habitats.

Our strategic vision flows from the South West Nature Map which identifies the best areas in our region to conserve, create and connect wildlife habitats at a landscape scale.  Here in Devon, our blueprint is the Devon Nature Map which guides our habitat restoration and re-creation plans.