Great Fen Living Landscape

The Great Fen Living Landscape project run by Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust is an ambitious 50-100-year habitat restoration project, with 14 square miles of land restored to wild fen, creating a huge nature recovery network.

The Great Fen Masterplan 2010 sets out  a 50 – 100 year vision for a wetland Living Landscape for people and wildlife, covering 3,700 hectares. At present, some 20 years into realizing this ambition, the Great Fen Project partners own 55.5% of the vision area. Currently 1200 hectares have been restored (wetland created from arable reversion) and overall, 1700 hectares are managed for conservation (this includes the two National Nature Reserves, Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen).

Since the project started, the fenland area has seen the return of avocets, common cranes and of breeding lapwings as well as rare wetland plants such as water dropwort.

The project is creating:

• Connection of the two National Nature Reserves, giving the specialised species they hold enough space to thrive.
• An area large enough to support threatened fen wildlife, such as bitterns and otters.
• A mosaic of different wetland habitats that will support a wide variety of special wildlife, such as dragonflies, butterflies, and amphibians.
• Suitable habitat for flowers and other plants found almost nowhere else in the UK, such as the Fen violet and the Fen woodrush.
• Sensitive areas and wildlife protected from heavy disturbance through zoning.