The Oxford Real Farming Conference is now in its 17th year. It is a combination of “big, ambitious questions, with as always, a focus on practical farming”. Where better then, to talk about deer management and landscape recovery in a farming context?
It was a great privilege to join a panel set up by Vicki Hird (Strategic Lead – Agriculture & Food at the Wildlife Trusts) titled Innovation in Food Systems for Nature Recovery and talk about how carefully controlled deer management, is essential for landscape scale recovery, specifically the Connecting Constable and Gainsborough Country Landscape Recovery scheme (CCGC) and helps us meet our food needs.
I have been fortunate to chair the farmer-led group tasked with creating the deer management programme for CCGC. People may baulk at deer management but without it, overpopulation of native and invasive deer species will continue to have a devastating impact on our woodlands and inhibit new areas of natural regeneration of scrub-habitat mosaic which lie the heart of the CCGC project. Within the woods and scrub, it’s not just the trees that are impacted by deer, but iconic plants like bluebells and orchids and all the invertebrates that live in the understory and all the birds that feed on the insects and plants. Healthy woodlands and new habitat are two of the three pillars of CCGC.
The third is farming for the future, in sustainable, profitable ways that are in harmony with the natural world. There is great concern about food security and concern that wildlife areas on farms will have a negative impact. In fact, deer are a significant cause of crop damage and hence food loss. If we are able to work towards a balance where we enjoy ecologically healthy native deer populations that help not hinder the environment within the CCGC area, then nature and farming, in a dynamic healthy landscape will be much better served, and we will be optimising the potential for an accessible quality protein.
Reflecting on the session, what struck me was the opportunity to talk about deer management, regenerating the landscape as part of a panel that discussed routes to market for beef and lamb, cereals, celery and tomatoes. This both normalises a process and a protein and shows how Suffolk Wildlife Trust is taking on the difficult problems for wildlife and farming in our county.
Find out more about the work of the Wilder Landscapes Team here: Landscape Recovery | Suffolk Wildlife Trust
