Page 14 - Wildlife News April 2018

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Where there are people, there are lines: fences, walls, lawns, hedges. To wildlife, these lines can

W e love lines, yet we have come Our gardens none of their potential and roads along
to let them govern us. Think can fit into which wildlife flourished. For example, in
about our landscapes and you a living Lincolnshire, a volunteer search for wild
cannot escape the impact of the lines we landscape flowers led to the designation of 159 new
have built. Hedges, ditches, dykes, walls, Local Wildlife Sites on verges along 155
canals, railways, roads and power lines all simple. There would be an easy miles of road.
mark out the space we share with wildlife. segregation of lines into good and bad.
Some of the lines are wildlife corridors and But very quickly it became apparent that To fix our fragmented land requires a
habitats of the highest order. Others there were hedges that were living up to massive change at the highest levels; we
destroy and fragment. need to address environmental,
agricultural and transport policy to
When I started researching my latest connect our landscapes for wildlife. Taking
book, Linescapes, I was sure it would be an active, landscape-scale approach to

paul harris/202vision Hugh Warwick Birds
lives in Oxford and
is an ecologist, use trees as
author and stepping
hedgehog lover. stones

Hedgehogs

Use gaps in
fences to
forage

bees

Move from
flower to flower

How many lines could your garden have
connecting it to other green places?
14 Wildlife news / April 2018