£350,000 for wildlife

IT IS certainly wildlife that is getting the money these days, with just under £350,000 being handed to Canal & River Trust to develop better environmental and community engagement on the waterway in Rochdale, Huddersfield and Birmingham.

The three years project, is made possible through a grant of £249,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation plus a further £100,000 funding from the People's Postcode Lottery.

Adopt a canal

CaRT wants to get groups of volunteers to adopt one to two mile stretches of canal through its Trust's ‘Adopt a Canal' initiative, as well as enhancing the waterways wildlife.

Martha Oddy, Fundraising Manager at the Canal & River Trust, explained:

"One of our aims is to encourage people to take active long term ownership of their local canal or river and help us pioneer a more integrated model of environmental and community engagement. We want to shape the best possible future for our waterways and the thoughts and involvement of the people that use them on a daily basis is essential to that success."

Ecological projects

We are told that members of the public interested in engaging more with their local waterway will be able to get involved with long term ecological projects which in turn will help support many UK's species which are currently at the risk of extinction, that will include:

1 Extending the existing green corridor, linking isolated populations of notable plant species to create a longer habitat resilient to environmental changes;

2 Implementing a tree and hedge management plan to improve water quality and habitat conditions for key species. It will also enhance the towpath for use by members of the local community;

3 Improving water quality through targeting potentially polluting discharges;

4 Removing invasive and non-native plant species to improve conditions for key species.

Not built for wildlife

Peter Birch, Group Environment Manager for the Canal & River Trust, added:

"Although our waterways were not built for wildlife, areas such as the three chosen are recognised as important biodiversity sites and now support a wide variety of plants and animals, some of which are now quite rare, such as floating water plantain, otters and water voles.

"Our 2,000 mile waterway network provides high quality habitat diversity that can help connect wildlife, instead of leaving them to survive in small fragmented pockets, which is essential to support sustainable populations. Community support in achieving our aims is vital so we hope that people support this ambitious project."