Farming, Ecology and Landscape Recovery in the Brecklands of Eastern England.

This talk by visitors to the Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle was hosted by Bard College and supported by the Hudson Valley Farm Hub and Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program.

It took place on 1 March.

Click here to view a recording of the presentation.

Richard Evans, co-founder and lead farmer in the Breckland Farmers Wildlife Network, described his experiences and motivations for protecting and enhancing the biodiversity of the Brecks, (a geographical region in eastern England). He also shared about his efforts to help shape future policy to benefit this area, and consider its current balance of food production and ecology. Chris Sharpe, an ornithologist who has helped gather avian data in the same region, provided an ecologist’s view of the interaction of bird life and agriculture in that landscape.

East Anglia, England—and Breckland in particular—is one of the most intensively managed regions of the UK for food production. Its landscape and environment are consequently highly modified. Although these changes have often reduced biodiversity, some historical human practices have created the very environments upon which now scarce, often threatened, local species depend. The last few decades have seen significant efforts to document and understand the region’s biodiversity with a view toward restoring nature on both agricultural and non-productive land. A growing number of contemporary farmers have enthusiastically adopted nature-friendly management practices.

Evans and Sharpe recounted more than two decades of farming and wildlife interactions in the Brecklands and shared lessons that they hope will shed light on how to organize a community around the values of conservation, both in England and beyond.

“Many of us here in the Hudson Valley are working to find our own balance between the need for our farms to succeed as profitable enterprises that feed our community, and as places that shelter and nurture native wildlife,” said Will Yandik, a member of the Farmer-Ecologist Research Circle. “I think our visitors from England have provided us the opportunity to evaluate our own lands with a fresh perspective.”