• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe March 17, 2023
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

New orchards offer life to wild species

May 8, 2019
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Paul Brown

 

While many of the UK’s traditional orchards are vanishing, new orchards are being planted to help wildlife and to slow global warming.

LONDON, 8 May, 2019 − New orchards are appearing across the UK to stop the widespread decline of rare insects and birds, and to slow down climate change.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

The National Trust, Britain’s largest conservation organisation, which owns hundreds of miles of coastline as well as country houses and farms, already looks after 200 orchards, but is to create another 68 across England by 2025 to try to halt a national decline.

There are still 25,350 hectares (62,650 acres) of orchards in the country − but that is 63% less than in 1950. Many are commercial monocultures. As a result, many rare types of apple are in danger of being lost and plum, pear and damson production is in decline.

Apart from saving endangered species of fruit from old orchards, the Trust is keen to preserve the bees that thrive on the springtime blossom and many other rare species of insect that live only on fruit trees. Unlike commercial growers, the Trust will be managing its new orchards without pesticides, and specifically for wildlife.

“Every tree is precious because it can become a home for birds such as the lesser spotted woodpecker, bats and mistletoe moth”

It will provide new habitats for insects like the noble chafer, a rare and beautiful relative of the scarab beetle, coloured a metallic bronze-green, as well as many other species that live mainly in old orchards.

Traditional orchards are far better for wildlife than commercial ones because they often contain very old trees, and have more space between them. Wildflower meadows are often grown underneath the trees to encourage insects to pollinate blossom when the trees burst into bloom.

The new orchards will also store carbon in the trunks of the growing trees and in the grassland below.

National Trust rangers and their volunteer teams will keep a close eye on the trees and encourage tits and other insect-eating birds to nest in the trees to eat caterpillars and help keep other pests down.

Ideal home

Dr David Bullock, head of species and habitat conservation at the Trust, said: “We launched a new wildlife and nature strategy in 2015. We identified traditional orchards as being of particular importance because they provide the perfect home for a variety of birds, pollinators and insects, as well as being great for people.

“Every tree is precious because it can become a home for birds such as the lesser spotted woodpecker, bats and mistletoe moth. The amazing number of apple and other traditional fruit varieties that we can plant reflects the wonderful diversity of life.”

Traditional orchards were listed as one of the 65 priority habitats in the UK’s Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, but they have continued to decline.

Dr Bullock says that as well as providing homes for wildlife traditional orchards are also important for conserving heritage fruit varieties such as two cider apples, called Jackets and Petticoats, and Ashmead’s Kernel.

Hopeful sign

“They are also vital for people. They provide us with delicious local and seasonal food and drink, they are places for people to enjoy and gather, have great cultural significance, and are places of beauty.”

One of the Trust’s properties, Cotehele, a medieval house in Cornwall in the far south-west of England, has seven orchards covering approximately 15 acres (six hectares), which are home to over 125 varieties of apple tree including the Cornish Honeypinnick, Limberlimb, Pig’s’ Nose and Lemon Pippin.

David Bouch, head gardener at Cotehele, says: “As we’re so far south, many flowers and trees come into bloom slightly earlier than elsewhere in the country because we experience milder winter temperatures.

“Apple blossom is such a delicate flower. It starts off with a tinge of pink when in bud, before bursting forth to reveal a fragile, snowy white flower which, for me, is hopefully a sign of the last of the frosts and the orchard bursting into life, from the bees to the wildflowers to the hope of a successful apple harvest.” − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
47
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
32

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
464
Environmental Defence Canada/flickr

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 18, 2023
249
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
852
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
470
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
211
NTSB

Ohio Train Derailment, Toxic Chemical Spill Renews Fears Over Canada-U.S. Rail Safety

March 8, 2023
1.4k

Recent Posts

U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
131
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
140
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
254
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
90
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
97
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
192
Next Post

Arctic soils may produce huge methane leak

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}