We are thrilled to announce a landmark nature restoration and rewilding project on our historic Estate – designed and delivered in collaboration with Environment Bank.
A 440-acre area of the Estate known as Bog Hall will go under a major project, to transform it from difficult to farm, low-yielding agricultural land into a thriving space for nature. The area, which is greater than the area inside the York City Walls, is a designated as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), within the Howardian Hills National Landscape, and has been carefully selected for its immense potential to enhance biodiversity. Working with Environment Bank ecologists, our goal is to almost triple the biodiversity over the next 30 years.
The Bog Hall Habitat Bank will reinvigorate the Estate's natural character and restore historic ecological features, while creating space to support flourishing wildlife and thriving plant life. Through locally sourced seeds and native livestock that mimic historic grazing patterns, we’ll establish extensive grasslands and enhance natural regeneration across the area. Our management plan has been carefully co-created with Environment Bank, and includes expanding hedgerows, managing woodland, and introducing plants that attract rare birds like turtle doves, which we hope to welcome back to this landscape. As part of the rewilding vision, we’re planning a release of beavers, working closely with the Beaver Trust to create a well-considered reintroduction programme that allows these incredible ecosystem engineers to shape the landscape.
We specifically chose land that was low-yielding and particularly difficult to farm because of its wetness – a feature that makes it extremely valuable from an ecological perspective – so we’re not taking any prime farmland out of food production. The project has the potential to enhance the agricultural productivity of other farmland on the Castle Howard Estate and the wider area by creating habitats where pollinators can really thrive. This can really benefit local farmers too. The Bog Hall Habitat Bank sits adjacent to a public bridleway, so we’re thrilled that people from the local community will be able to enjoy views of the site as it transforms over the years. But it is also important to give nature a space to recover and sites like these must be suitably protected as they establish so wildlife can live undisrupted. Safari tracks and walking trails through the Habitat Bank are being carefully planned so local people may even be able to visit the site without impacting the developing habitats.
Environment Bank's qualified ecologists will monitor the project's success using on-ground surveys and advanced techniques such as acoustic surveys, camera traps, satellite photography, and environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis. Using extensive and ongoing data collection, we will be able to give a clear picture of the biodiversity uplifts created by our habitat restoration and rewilding endeavours. • Forecast biodiversity increase of almost 200% • Carbon sequestration of more than 30,000 CO2e (tonnes) • Enhanced community access to nature • Improved natural flood management
Fields are already being prepared for new habitats and significant changes to the landscape will be clearly visible within the first two years. Fencing is being installed for beaver rewilding to begin from 2025. Over the next 10 years, our newly created ponds and diverse scrubland will establish, and we anticipate that within 15 years the 440-acre landscape across the Bog Hall Habitat Bank will have been entirely transformed through natural regeneration, habitat creation, and rewilding.
Get involved and share in the biodiversity from this incredible project by purchasing Nature Shares from Environment Bank.
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