What's it all about?

Background

The wetland nature reserves that I manage are facing multiple pressures which are causing wildlife decline and local extinction.  Two thirds of my time at work is spent on practical habitat management.  The other third is public engagement.  Sadly, few people understand what meadows need. My visit to Transylvania will allow me to learn traditional skills and gain fresh insights on how parts of the Itchen Valley can be farmed in a similar way, with the help of the local community.  This will benefit people and biodiversity.

Project Objectives:

1. Travel to Transylvania, Romania, to develop my knowledge of hay meadows. Collect notes, video and undertake interviews to understand the history and how people connect with the High Nature Value Area.

2. Learn traditional hay meadow skills such as scything and building of hayricks by working with the local Romanian communities. Collect information on management techniques and practice doing them myself.

3.  Assess the values of meadows to local people in Transylvania via conversations and interviews.

4. Teach 90 local volunteers and communities in the Itchen Valley and South Downs how to manage their meadows to benefit wildlife via monthly work parties and community hay making days.

4. Deliver 4 talks, 4 guided walks and 2 courses in Winchester per year. Refer to meadow management in Romania.

5. Investigate how people value their local meadows. Does involving people with the management increase their connection to the land and help them look after it? Trial research methods to evaluate this.

How will the project work?

Transylvania's High Nature Value landscapes were created by hundreds of years of traditional farming.  Over the past ten years projects have identified threats to this landscape, such as intensification of agriculture and abandonment.  The region's biodiversity and its value has been recognised.  This is dependent on low intensity farming.  Protection orders alone cannot protect the landscape and ecosystem services it offers.  Making the farming livelihoods economically viable has been the key to maintaining the high biodiversity.

As a nature reserve officer with a specialism in community engagement I want to spend time in this hotspot of biodiversity and learn how farmers are working with the local community and how local people manage the land.  I will tour the area meeting local farmers, rural crafts people and projects.

The trip will be recorded via notes, photos and video to create a report and blog.  On my return to Winchester I will give talks, lead guided walks and courses.  Practical skills such as scything and building hayricks will be taught to colleagues and volunteers via work parties.  Community hay making days will reconnect people with their local meadows.

Benefits of the project to me and others

In England, the intensification of agriculture has reduced the number of people working the land.  This has decreased public understanding and appreciation of essential habitat management.  By traveling to Transylvania I can rekindle skills that have disappeared from the UK due to mechanisation.

The knowledge I gain from Transylvania will be shared with 90 volunteers who help manage Winnall Moors and St Faith's and St Cross Meadows' in the Itchen Valley.  Learning these new, but traditional skills will bring history to life and show them the wildlife that benefits from their work.  Local people can join in with the haymaking, creating an important social gathering.

I have the support of the South Downs National Park, Floodplains Meadow Partnership, the Environment Agency and the Wildlife Trust.  The presentations and courses I teach to fellow land managers will give them confidence to use traditional land management and restoration techniques on their sites too.

I will maintain contact with the colleagues I meet in Romania.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust are supporting my trip with a travelling Fellowship. Their funding and support provides a platform to disseminate my learning to the UK. 

I will be in Romania for 4 weeks 22^nd July – 19^th August 2016:

Week 1 -meeting farmers and visiting meadows in the Fundatia Adept project area.

Week 2 - touring different cultural and geographical haymaking areas. Zărneşti – 1 day plus meadows of Birsa Mare valley – also Râșnov & Bran citadels/castle. Măgura – 2 days higher altitude meadows. Sibiu and Cisnădioara (Michelsberg) – medieval city and Saxon villages

Mugeni (Bőgőz) and Odorheiu Secuiesc (Székelyudvarhely) – Szekely culture

Week 3 - hay Camp with the Barbara Knowles Trust. 

Week 4 - with Tibor Hartel and Arti, helping with the Remarkable Trees of Romania Project.