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December 2022 December 2022

WILD WOODBURY

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of update last month, the message was sat
in my outbox without sending before I went away on holiday – I’ll just have to give
you a double update this month! We have a lot happening on site currently, with
much of the major works being completed over the next couple of months, and
with Winter volunteer work parties starting up again to help further prep the site.
A very exciting part of
October and November
h a s b e e n t h e
hydrological restoration
across several fields on
the Southern part of Wild
Woodbury. Channelling
our inner Beavers, we’ve
had a digger on site
filling in drainage ditches
in strategic locations to
force the water back
onto the land. We’ve let
this water flow naturally
across the fields, finding
its own way through the
site, and begin to really
wet up the land
(hopefully creating around 100-acres of wetland). The re-wetting on the land and
the slowing of the water will have masses of benefits both onsite and
downstream. By slowing the flow, we are filtering out excess nutrients from the
water and locking them up in soils and vegetation growth; we are helping to
alleviate flooding downstream, and we are creating a haven for wildlife. This
benefits of this work will truly begin to be seen once we have some prolonged rain
over the Winter months.
In preparation for future grazing at Wild Woodbury, we are having a perimeter
fence built in the next few months too. This will be to make the Rewilding area one
large unit, opposed to several non-connected fields. The interconnectedness of
the unit is very important, so any future livestock can freely roam throughout the
whole area and choose when and where to graze. Part of the prep work also
includes removing several roadside Ash trees that have Ash-dieback, a tree
disease which I’m sure you are all aware of. Although we must remove these trees
for road safety, we will be felling a number of them back onto Wild Woodbury
land to create a huge amount of deadwood, a vitally scarce habitat these days
for a number of species that rely on it for food, shelter, and breeding grounds.

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