Long Mead Local Wildlife Site is an important Oxfordshire farm and nature reserve on the River Thames at Swinford. It combines a 10ha rare wildflower hay meadow (of which only 4 square miles remain in the UK) with freshwater habitat, woodland and a traditional orchard habitat.
For two decades, as part of its farming and conservation enterprise, Long Mead has run care-farming and educational visits – working with local government, schools and NGOs to share the educational and therapeutic benefits of this beautiful site. In 2013, it was awarded for its work in the Bayer Face Farming and Countryside Awards.
Long Mead has recently set up two far-reaching environmental initiatives.
1. The Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project (TVWMRP) aims to increase the UK’s four square miles of floodplain hay meadow to support the creation of a nature recovery network for Oxfordshire by working with neighbouring farmers and landowners to restore and recreate floodplain meadows along the Thames, where much of the remaining habitat lies in designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Local Wildlife Sites.
2. The Nature Recovery Network is a place-based, bottom-up nature recovery project. Its aim is to develop the means whereby the whole community of a parish (its local experts, enthusiasts, councillors and businesses, as well as its more vulnerable members) can act collectively and effectively to reverse, on its own lands, the calamitous decline in biodiversity that is reported countrywide.
Restoration being carried out by the community connects into the wider landscape being restored under the TVWMRP. This not only facilitates the creation of wildlife corridors, it can enhance community engagement by the inclusion of their work into a landscape-scale project.
For two decades, as part of its farming and conservation enterprise, Long Mead has run care-farming and educational visits – working with local government, schools and NGOs to share the educational and therapeutic benefits of this beautiful site. In 2013, it was awarded for its work in the Bayer Face Farming and Countryside Awards.
Long Mead has recently set up two far-reaching environmental initiatives.
1. The Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project (TVWMRP) aims to increase the UK’s four square miles of floodplain hay meadow to support the creation of a nature recovery network for Oxfordshire by working with neighbouring farmers and landowners to restore and recreate floodplain meadows along the Thames, where much of the remaining habitat lies in designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Local Wildlife Sites.
2. The Nature Recovery Network is a place-based, bottom-up nature recovery project. Its aim is to develop the means whereby the whole community of a parish (its local experts, enthusiasts, councillors and businesses, as well as its more vulnerable members) can act collectively and effectively to reverse, on its own lands, the calamitous decline in biodiversity that is reported countrywide.
Restoration being carried out by the community connects into the wider landscape being restored under the TVWMRP. This not only facilitates the creation of wildlife corridors, it can enhance community engagement by the inclusion of their work into a landscape-scale project.