A visionary partnership project working to promote integrated management of a viable and enhanced landscape in the West Weald for people and nature.
The West Weald Landscape Project (WWLP) works to conserve and enhance the special natural environment of an extensive area through a co-ordinated approach to management for wildlife, quality of the environment and use and appreciation by people.
1. Enhanced conservation of four core forest areas
2. Improved connections and land management across the whole landscape
3. Informed conservation from applied research, surveys and monitoring
4. Increased enjoyment, understanding, and involvement of the public
The West Weald Landscape Project (WWLP) covers a large area of 240 square kilometres (nearly 60,000 acres) at the western end of the Low Weald, north of the town of Petworth. The Low Weald of West Sussex and south Surrey is a diverse rural landscape that is one of the most wooded parts of the UK, covering a third of the area of which two-thirds is ‘ancient’ woodland dating back many centuries. At the heart of this area lie the internationally important Sussex Wildlife Trust nature reserves of The Mens and Ebernoe Common. Significant populations of rare species are present, including fourteen of the UK’s seventeen species of bats and threatened species of woodland birds and butterflies such as the Lesser spotted woodpecker and Wood white. Several important species have needs beyond the sites where they live, and hence require a landscape-scale focus for their conservation. For example, the rare barbastelle bat 'commutes' nightly along bushy hedgerows and woodland corridors to feed over different wetland areas.
The WWLP aims to enhance the area through an integrated landscape-scale approach to achieve improved condition of the natural environment, creating space for nature, encouraging natural processes, and expanding the services provided freely by ecosystems such as clean air and water. In addition to stabilising and enhancing the biodiversity of the core forest areas present, we seek to create better connections across a more naturally functioning landscape to enable species to thrive within and move between sites, giving them a better chance of adapting to the impacts of climate change in particular. People are of course inextricably linked to the landscape's past, present and future, much of which remains relatively unchanged since medieval times due to a lengthy continuity in traditional land management which we wish to see maintained. We thus work with farmers, landowners and the public to encourage positive land management and foster understanding, enjoyment, access to and inspiration from a more natural landscape. A broad partnership of 16 organisations including environmental bodies and local authorities are involved in the project.
