How can People’s Trust for Endangered Species help me?
Alarmingly, in the UK, almost two-thirds of species have declined in the last 50 years. People’s Trust for Endangered Species is therefore keen to collaborate with golf clubs to help stop this loss of wildlife. Many parkland golf courses have been designed to blend into the countryside whilst making the most of natural landscape features to challenge the player. Incorporating wildlife and habitats into the design is a natural extension of this endeavour, but one that may have been neglected.
Vast tracts of land are under golf courses. Unlike farmland, for too long there has been no collaborative initiative or opportunities to help golf clubs achieve their potential for supporting biodiversity. They can work with clubs to provide management advice that would benefit wildlife and help preserve and create natural or man-made habitat features to make golf courses the crowning ecological glories of the countryside that they could potentially be.
Where there are old fruit trees or fruit hedgerows, or where a wood pasture landscape with ancient trees is present, there exists the potential to manage it in such a way that it could provide a habitat for decades or centuries into the future. Likewise waterways, ponds, unimproved grasslands or other habitats can provide wildlife with much needed spaces that are rapidly disappearing in an intensively farmed landscape.
With a few simple changes to management, some of which may cost a small amount, whilst others will make savings, a balance could be easily struck that would benefit golfers, wildlife and land managers alike.
Small Grants
They provide small grants to bolster existing traditional orchards that have fallen into disrepair.
Mapping and condition assessment
They are currently running projects to map and condition assess WPP and orchards.
They are looking for land which can receive regional collections of fruit trees at sites where longevity is highly likely; where professional (not public) access is possible; and ideally at an organisation so that reliable contact is easily maintained.
In addition, People’s Trust for Endangered Species can help land managers identify ecologically important features, understand how they can be managed or preserved, and if they can be moved or replaced.