Avalon Marshes, Somerset
"At the heart of Somerset's Levels and Moors, lies a beautiful area called the “Avalon Marshes”. The Avalon Marshes is a vibrant, working landscape, celebrated for its rich wildlife, heritage and culture, valued and enjoyed by all."
The words above are taken directly from the Avalon Marshes website. The Avalon Marshes are restored wetlands based on old peat workings. The redundancy of the peat workings created an opportunity; to restore high nature value habitats with associated wildlife and enable natural wetland networks to be reformed.
As a result the area has become an extensive wetland system, managed by a range of partner organsations and as a result has helped to bring back lost wildlife like Bitterns, Bearded Tits and Cranes and many other species. It supports mammals like water vole and otter and in winter, when the reedbeds and grazing marshes flood, it provides a site for thousands of wintering waterbirds.
The wetlands were restored by creating water control mechanisms enabling levels to be carefully managed to restore the right habitats in the right places, reed planting and trnslocation was necessary in some places. And of course some of the iconic wildlife needed a helping hand to return...not least the Crane, where a reintroduction project is underway in the Somerset levels to re-establish the species.
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| Common Crane (Image copyright: Lorcan O'Toole) |
A short film gives a good outline of the great crane project and the enigmatic nature of the birds themselves
Along with the wildlife spectacle of a large wetland come people. Visitors to the marshes come to experience the wildlife, heritage and landscape from bird hides and viewpoints and while walking or cycling. The sites are linked by walking routes and bike trails and the area's reputation as a wildlife tourism destination has been enhanced. Despite numbers being hard to source, an extract from a Shapwick heath reserve newsletter gives a flavour of the scale of visitor numbers attracted to the site:Visitor numbers have been steadily increasing over the years but with new visitor counters in place on Shapwick Heath, Ham Wall and Westhay Moor we are starting to get a much better picture of what is happening. Over the Easter weekend there were nearly 2,500 visitors, with numbers peaking at 1,500 on Good Friday a fine day, but dropping to just over 100 on Saturday when the weather was foul. Almost 50% of these people visited Shapwick Heath. And over the first three months of the year more than 23,000 visited Shapwick Heath alone
A rich social and industrial heritage also seems to form a strong theme within the Avalon Marshes. The interpretation and messaging at the sites brings a strong human reference point for visitors. Some of the walking routes and cycle trails are based on old tracks and railways used on the peat workings and in themselves are of interest but importantly are being used now to bring people into the wetland to experience it but also link to the working heritage of the sites
Although the sites in themselves are important the whole area of the levels and the working landscape surrounding it are important in providing landscape quality, natural networks, access routes and heritage.
How would this compare to a Mid-Shannon Wetland Wilderness Park?
A range of comparisons and lessons for our own project are clear:
1. Restoration of industrial peatlands to wetlands is both feasible and effective - this has great relevance to many of the cut-away bogs which might form part of a future wetland complex and could be restored to complex wetlands with reed, scrub and open water mosaics
2. Utlising existing linkages such as tracks and industrial railways has formed an important resource for visitors to the sites and similar infrastructure exists in the mid-Shannon region and could bring visitors into the heart of wetlands to see wildlife
3. The management of the sites is a partnership - there seems to be a collective vision but with a range of partners delivering towards that collective vision which incl;udes, wildlife, heritage, landscape and community interests
4. Wildlife is at its heart - the main focus of the project is wildlife, re-establishing viable habitats and enabling recovery of formerly lost wildlife populations for their own benefit has been key but this forms an impressive wildlife spectacle which appeals to visitors as part of a tourism offering and adds to quality for life for local communities.
5. Many species will return on their own but some may need added help. Re-introductions or translocations may need to be used to restore a more complete suite of wetland species where that is appropriate but the habitat must be established first.
6. The scale of the Avalon marshes is relatively modest in comparison to the potential for a WWP in the mid-Shannon area and with larger ecological units comes greater certainty, more robust ecology and more opportunities for people too
7. the Avalon marshes are complemented by a network of complimentary land management, farming and semi-natural habitats over a much wider area and these contribute to landscape and heritage aspects as well as wildlife. As such bringing complimentary land management to the mid-Shannon WWP area would also be desirable and mechanisms to achieve that should be explored in our concept development
The next blog post tomorrow will explore the value of wetlands for the communities, the economy and sustainability...
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