RESTORING BIODIVERSITY

Global warming is not the only problem.

Halting species loss is just as important. Britain has recently been recognised as the worst performer for halting nature loss of all G10 countries.

The 2019 UK State of Nature Report concluded 41% of all species are still in decline, and 15% are now threatened with extinction.

The Peppering Biodiversity Project was initially set up to save the wild Grey Partridge from local extinction on the South Downs. This has been achieved but it has also shown how shooting and conservation can work together to improve biodiversity generally.

News about the Peppering Project

News
Private landowners make better conservationists
Private landowners make better conservationists

The Duke of Norfolk is best known for presiding over the coronation as hereditary Earl Marshal, but what really gets him excited is a native farmland bird, the grey partridge. Nearly 20 years ago he was appalled to learn from the veteran ecologist Dick Potts that the species was down to its last three pairs on his estate in Sussex and about to go extinct.

The Duke of Norfolk: The precious gift Prince Philip gave me to restore my estate’s wildlife
The Duke of Norfolk: The precious gift Prince Philip gave me to restore my estate’s wildlife

He organised Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and King Charles III’s Coronation – but his fight to save the grey partridge is a personal project.

By working together, the farming and keepering teams at Peppering have achieved the holy grail of farmland wildlife restoration
By working together, the farming and keepering teams at Peppering have achieved the holy grail of farmland wildlife restoration

In 2002, the late Dick Potts, GWCT scientist and head of the Sussex Study into farmland wildlife, visited the Duke of Norfolk and Estate Manager Peter Knight to ask if they could help prevent the extinction of the grey partridge on the Sussex Downs. Dick made clear that, unless action was taken, the species would become extinct on the South Downs within 10 years.

Sunday book review – The Return of the Grey Partridge by Roger Morgan-Grenville and Edward Norfolk
Sunday book review – The Return of the Grey Partridge by Roger Morgan-Grenville and Edward Norfolk

This is the story of the recovery of Grey Partridge on the Duke of Norfolk’s land at Peppering on the South Downs (that’s Arundel Castle on the cover). It is a beautifully written tale (by Roger Morgan-Grenville) of a successful species recovery project based on the landowner’s enthusiasm for having a wild partridge shoot for his entertainment and that of his visitors.

How the Yorkshire Dales is Leading The Way to Save Endangered Curlews
How the Yorkshire Dales is Leading The Way to Save Endangered Curlews

This year three locations are receiving curlew: The Duke of Norfolk’s Peppering Estate in Sussex, Lord Cranborne’s Estate in Dorset and Mr Philip Merricks’ National Nature Reserve at Elmley in Kent. It’s hoped the birds will survive to adulthood and return in two years’ time to form new breeding colonies in these areas.

Five Yorkshire estates taking part in biggest re-location of curlew eggs in a bid to increase numbers of endangered bird
Five Yorkshire estates taking part in biggest re-location of curlew eggs in a bid to increase numbers of endangered bird

Five Yorkshire estates taking part in biggest re-location of curlew eggs in a bid to increase numbers of endangered bird

Duke of Norfolk wades in to rescue Britain’s curlews
Duke of Norfolk wades in to rescue Britain’s curlews

The Duke of Norfolk organised the Queen’s funeral and is masterminding the first coronation in 80 years. He has somehow found time for another daunting challenge — helping restore Europe’s largest wading bird to its former habitat in southern England.

Saving the curlew: How the Duke of Norfolk is joining efforts to bring them back from the brink
Saving the curlew: How the Duke of Norfolk is joining efforts to bring them back from the brink

With the curlew–that wader with a haunting call–now almost extinct in the South of England, Simon Lester meets the Duke of Norfolk, who is hoping to pull them back from the brink on his West Sussex estate.

The Return of the Grey Partridge: Restoring Nature on the South Downs

“It’s a very good read and charts a remarkable rise in Grey Partridge numbers, secured through habitat improvement and intensive...predator control”
— Mark Avery

The Return of the Grey Partridge tells the extraordinary story of how wildlife is restored to the Arundel Estate in West Sussex. Prompted by the collapse in numbers of one species, the grey partridge of the title, the managers of the estate woke up to the devastating effect modern farming methods were having on wildlife.

Following the estate through the seasons of one year, the book shows how the farm of Peppering is gradually renatured: fields are divided up with hedgerows and trees, beetle banks are built across fields, the land is manured rather than fed with artificial fertilisers, and much of it is returned to pasture. Detailed descriptions of nature give a sense of this large estate coming back to life - still very much farmland, but with a rapid increase in wildlife and biodiversity. And the partridges return.

Written in collaboration with the Duke of Norfolk, owner of the Arundel Estate, this moving and hopeful account shows how modern farming can work in partnership with nature to restore not only birdlife but to benefit the whole ecosystem.