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Last year
Clarity were contracted by the Kentish Stour Countryside Project
to produce a Biodiversity Action Plan
(BAP) for the River Stour Internal Drainage Board (IDB).
Recent legislation
means that all IDBs are obliged to produce BAPs, but all parties
involved wanted to do much more than just create a document to
satisfy this statutory requirement. We wanted to make the most
of the opportunity to bring real benefits for wildlife to the
River Stour catchment and were determined that the BAP would be
a working document and not gather dust on a shelf.
The key to this
was the IDB's requirement that one of the key actions in the plan
should be the production of individual management prescription
sheets for the watercourses they maintain. These would guide their
contractors in making adjustments to their regular management
of watercourses to benefit wildlife - for example the rotational
cutting of bankside vegetation.They would also embody physical
enhancements to watercourses (e.g. the creation of berms or pools)
to be carried out during desilting.
In order to prescribe
these improvements, another key action in the BAP is an ecological
condition survey of all watercourses and their environs. This
would be a substantial undertaking that will take six years to
deliver. Clarity are pleased to learn that the Kentish Stour Countryside
Project are now in the early stages of carrying out this survey,
designing a methodology and setting criteria to evaluate the condition
of watercourses by. Criteria will include the presence of the
BAP's priorty species, such as water vole and reed bunting. The
plan also prioritised less glamourous species such as the shining
ramshorn snail and the nationally scarce divided sedge, but it's
management guidance sections will benefit a whole array of fauna
and flora. It's an exciting time for the Stour catchment!
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