The WildEast project is encouraging people to share videos and pictures of wildlife projects of all sizes using the hashtag #MyWildEast.
Trustees have sent the following message in response to the launch of the Wild East appeal for support — see
https://www.edp24.co.uk/business/farming/wildeast-rewilding-project-launches-social-media-appeal-1-6730264
"Suffolk Flora Preservation Trust (SFPT) is a small local charity founded by the Ipswich botanist, the late Francis Simpson MBE. Originally funded by Francis Simpson's bequest (2004), the Trust is now supported by the subscriptions of members, termed Guardians. Volunteer SFPT Guardians manage two small reserves.
"At Hasketon, the reserve of 10.4 acres comprises an open glade with scattered specimen broadleaf trees, three ponds and a surrounding belt of dense woodland planted in 1996. This reserve is unstocked, but fallow deer and muntjac browse the lower branches of young trees and, with hares and rabbits, graze the open clearing: Here is SFPT's chosen contribution to wilding.
"At Kelsale, on Simpson's Fromus Reserve, 27 acres, SFPT has revived Mediaeval pastures, once part of Baron Roger Bigod's protected deer park (later inherited by Earls and Dukes of Norfolk). Here, the historic landscape includes Bigod's great earthen dam, built to impound a once impressively extensive fishpond, that collapsed in the 14th century creating an unexpectedly deep gorge. Here, cutting into the landscape, the infant river Fromus meanders naturally, and fringing woodland is replete with veteran oaks. Fromus pastures are grazed by a small herd of an appropriate rare breed, British White Cattle, and the land is entered in the current Lowland Grazing stewardship scheme. Each year, with the help of specialists, SFPT charts more of the ancient biodiversity of these Suffolk claylands.
"Trustees are confident that our reserves, at present, serve as valuable refuges. Our ambition is that our neighbours should recognise these special places as reservoirs from which — through partnership with the inspiring Wild East project — their adjoining arable farmland can re-assimilate this natural heritage of our East Anglian wildlife."
@wildeastuk