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Read in: EnglishCymraeg
Our meadows have been part of our natural heritage for centuries and cared for by people for generations – but they are now more at risk than ever before.
We’re in the height of summer, with sun and ice cream on the mind, which must mean one thing – National Meadows Day is here! What better time to shine a light on these incredible habitats and take action to protect them.
Did you know that meadows have been part of our natural heritage for centuries? They have been cared for by people for generations and we cannot let them disappear.
How would you feel if someone knocked down an historical building like the Houses of Parliament, just to build it somewhere else? Or reduced Conwy or Edinburgh Castles to rubble and created lacklustre replicas. It wouldn’t be the same, right?
The same applies to meadows, which are now more at risk than ever.
Without proper protections, the destruction of meadows is continuing across Britain. That’s why we’re calling for irreplaceable meadows to be added to the Irreplaceable Habitats list.
Meadows support a whole array of valuable wildlife. The unique interplay of geology, weather, and grazing animals have favoured particular communities of plants, which form relationships with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil.
Layers and layers of soil have built over time in meadows, and are home to wiggling earthworms, busy insects, and a whole planet-worth of microbes.
The complex relationships between wildlife in meadows are finely balanced. For example, the Adonis Blue butterfly only feeds on Horseshoe Vetch. If this plant disappeared in a local area, so too would the butterfly.
This would then impact ants which have a reciprocal relationship with the butterfly, thus reducing food sources for birds – and so on.
These meadows are magnificent crucibles of life and cannot be recreated within a meaningful timeframe.
National Meadows Day, the first Saturday in July is the perfect time to celebrate the sweet-smelling, colourful cacophony of meadows. From the white froth of Meadowsweet, to purple pom-pom heads of Devil’s-bit Scabious straining to be seen.
While National Meadows Day is a celebration of the meadows that we have, it’s also a time to highlight all the meadows that have been lost.
The past century has seen them ploughed, over-fertilised, bulldozed for buildings, and destroyed by misplaced tree planting.
An estimated 97% of all of our meadows have been lost, many of these meadows are historic, irreplaceable meadows. Meadows that have been in our society and communities for centuries, unique habitats that has well-established ecosystems that we and nature relies on.
The remaining meadows that have clung on through the decades or centuries are the last bastions of our farming and cultural heritage. These meadows are truly irreplaceable and we want to protect them for the future.
To protect meadows, we’re calling for irreplaceable meadows to be added to the Irreplaceable Habitats List. But, what does this mean?
The UK Government has classed some habitats, like ancient woodlands and blanket bogs, as irreplaceable habitats. This means that they should have more protection in planning policy, where they can’t be harmed by development unless in exceptional circumstances.
In England, the UK Government is proposing sweeping changes to planning policy with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which puts our most beloved habitats and wildlife at risk of inappropriate development.
That’s why it’s more important than ever for these meadows to be recognised as irreplaceable habitats and get the protections they both deserve and need.
Governments must take action now. We’re calling for the UK Government to add irreplaceable meadows and grasslands to the list of irreplaceable habitats,
We also want to see the Scottish Government take this important step. While the Welsh Government has explicitly listed species-rich grasslands as a type of irreplaceable habitat, there’s still work to get Government to understand their value.
Help us make sure that irreplaceable meadows are not just a memory. Take action by:
What do you think of when you hear the word 'weed'? Join us as we uncover the myths #and delve into what it really means.
The National Museum of Scotland has transformed its collections centre into a haven for insects and local wildlife by taking part in the No Mow Movement. Learn how.
The changes to insects, wildflowers and people have been ‘mind-blowing’ since the National Museum of Scotland started taking part in the No Mow Movement.
We asked Entomology Curator Ashleigh Whiffin how it’s made a positive impact to insect biodiversity and how it’s helping her work as an entomologist.
Watch our full video below.
I have always been a big supporter of No Mow May and the No Mow Movement because I think it’s an incredible campaign for raising awareness of wildflowers and this is vital if we’re going to improve the available habitat for insects.
There had been an interest among staff in participating in the No Mow Movement, but really what spurred it on was the lockdown periods. During this time the contractors didn’t come in to mow the grass and displayed a little version of what could be.
Initially, we just wanted to see what was here naturally. The site had been manicured for many years, so the grass was incredibly short and flowers were not given the opportunity to bloom.
When we first left the site to grow in lockdown, we started to see wonderful flowers like Oxeye Daisy and Cuckooflower – things I know insects love.
Native wildflowers are most important to insects because these are the species that they have evolved alongside and they provide them with the exact food sources they need.
We have also done a little bit of enhancement and added Primroses and Cowslips to the grassland to provide an early supply of nectar and pollen for some of our spring pollinators. And then we’ve also added Yellow Rattle, which has probably had the biggest impact. The Yellow Rattle has spread throughout the 4 years that we’ve been doing this project, and it’s really made quite a difference.
I think my favourite flower is possibly the Common Knapweed because I love its bright pop of colour and seeing a bee really stuck face-first deep into the flower is really satisfying.
One of my favourite things about us participating in the No Mow Movement has been the insects that we’re recording, including things that were not here before.
Everything from butterflies to moths to beetles and bees – and one of the biggest noticeable differences is the number of butterflies in recent years.
We’ve recorded 16 species of butterflies on our site during this period. They’re not all breeding here but that number is almost half of the butterflies recorded in Scotland, so that’s pretty good going! And because we’ve allowed our areas to grow, we found that we have a wonderful population now of Small Skipper butterflies.
The adult butterflies really need the floral resources to get the pollen and nectar. But their offspring need some breeding habitat, so the diversity of grasses we have are really important.
I’ve loved being able to work with my colleagues out on the grounds and interact in different ways than we usually would. It definitely has the mental health benefits to many of the staff and volunteers.
Also, the sounds of nature. Sitting near the meadow on your lunch break and hearing the grasshoppers and seeing the butterflies dance along the meadow – it’s a really nice experience.
There’s also a feeling of satisfaction, knowing that we’ve made these changes and they’ve been really positive.
The management plan that we developed has totally rewritten what was happening here before and we have transformed the site during the course of the last 4 years.
Instead of the grass being cut every 2 weeks, we have just particular areas of the grass that are cut. Most of the grassland is left and we just have edges of the green spaces, the perimeter of the site and then designated pathways cut during the growing season. We also leave areas long all winter to create habitat for wildlife.
It’s been a delicate balance of trying to make sure that we’re enhancing the biodiversity but not disrupting any access.
The National Museum’s collection centre is in the north of Edinburgh in an urban area. Our site is pretty unassuming – it’s an urban plot that is a series of buildings with green spaces laced between them.
But we have become a little bit of a green haven for the local wildlife.
As an institution, the No Mow Movement really nicely aligns with our aims as we research biodiversity, particularly Scottish insects, which is one of my focuses.
And of course, we’re very concerned about the environmental and biodiversity crisis right now. So doing something more with our own green space that we have was a natural way forward. I really hope that what we’ve done on our site can show other organisations what’s possible.
If I had to list everything that we found, we would be here for a very, very long time. We’ve got countless moths, butterflies, bees and bugs including:
With insects being more plentiful, that’s also been great for the birdlife and we’ve had Blue Tits and Great Tits nesting on site and foraging, collecting caterpillars for their young.
We’ve also had a number of mammals, some of which can’t be recorded in the day. So, by setting up camera traps, we’ve been able to see some of the nocturnal wildlife, predominantly that’s our foxes.
The biodiversity loss that we’re facing and biodiversity declines that we’re seeing are a very real and quite scary issue.
Now more than ever, it’s so important that we use any little scrap of space that we can to make things a little bit wilder and support our biodiversity.
By participating in the No Mow Movement it’s given us this whole opportunity to look at the insect life and our biodiversity right on our doorstep at the Collections Centre in a totally different way.
It’s clear that by giving power to the flowers and encouraging those native grasses can have a huge impact on our insect biodiversity.
Plantlife's Road Verges Advisor Mark Schofield reveals how to keep your thriving No Mow May flowering lawn blossoming into June.
It’s not just trees that capture and store carbon, our meadows and grasslands play an important role too.
If you’re taking part in No Mow May this year, then your garden will be well on its way to becoming a beautiful, biodiverse haven for nature. But there is a bonus to helping the wildflowers grow – as you allow lawn to become meadow, your garden becomes your very own carbon store, helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
When carbon sequestration is mentioned, most minds turn to trees. As a society we are more aware than ever before of the role of woodlands in combatting climate change and creating a space for nature. Much less discussed is the remarkable and equally vital role our grasslands and meadows can play in increasing biodiversity and capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere.
When we create healthy grasslands and meadows by mowing or grazing livestock, we are simply replicating the activity of the herds of large wild herbivores that once moved across our hills and valleys. These habitats – if the grazing is gentle, infrequent and low intensity – recreate prehistoric landscapes and provide a home for our wild plants, insects, birds and fungi. Natural and semi-natural grasslands (meaning those that are farmed but in a traditional, less intensive manner) improve the quality of our water, prevent flooding and help increase the resilience of farming to summer droughts.
This grassland – and the healthy soil beneath it – also has an incredible and little-known potential to lock away atmospheric carbon. Soil carbon is a particularly valuable store; it is far more stable and long lasting than the carbon in trees, which is vulnerable to forest fires, pests and disease.
As plants live and grow, carbon from the atmosphere is drawn down into the plants’ roots, where the myriad creatures in the soil make use of it, locking it away beneath the ground. As the diversity of plants on the surface increases, so does the diversity of microorganisms, fungi and invertebrates beneath it. The more diverse the soil life, the richer the entire ecosystem – and the more carbon the soil can store.
The almost mystical role of mycorrhizal fungi is now well known. They connect roots to the nutrients in the soil, trading sugars that plants and trees create from sunlight with locked away minerals the fungi extract from the soil. We now know that plants and trees can communicate through these fungal networks, alerting them to pests and diseases and passing nutrients to others in need.
Mycorrhizal fungi have another important role – they are critical in the ability of plants to transfer carbon to the soil. In areas of farmland, meadow and garden where the soil is ploughed, fertilised or dominated by a small number of grass species, these mycorrhizal networks are much less effective – with fewer species and a lower carbon storage potential. When we look after our farmland and gardens with care, mowing and grazing infrequently and gently, avoiding ploughing and pesticides, we nurture our mycorrhizal fungi, helping the soil to become a more potent carbon store.
By taking part in No Mow May, you will not only begin to create a home for wildflowers and insects, you will also create healthier soils that nourish your garden plants – and reduce your carbon footprint in the process.
England alone has around 640,000 hectares of private garden. If just a quarter of this area was transformed into wildflower rich meadow – by mowing just once or twice a year and collecting the cuttings – then these garden soils could potentially capture and store an additional amount of carbon equivalent to more than 3 million average cars’ annual emissions within a spade’s depth, and well over 10 million cars in soils as deep as one meter*.
Lawns and gardens are of course just one part of the puzzle – the UK’s farmed grassland landscape offers tremendous potential for us to sequester carbon, while also protecting agriculture and biodiversity.
Farmers and landowners have a fundamental role to play – combining food production with sustainable grasslands that lock away carbon in healthy, ecologically rich soils. Some 40% of the UK’s land area is grassland – but much of this is intensively farmed, limiting its potential for carbon storage.
Globally, studies have suggested that 2.3-7.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalents per year could be sequestered through grassland diversity restoration. Carbon sequestration doesn’t just mean more trees. Healthy grassland, with the more sensitive grazing and less intensive farming that nourishes it, also keeps carbon out of the atmosphere.
No matter how large or small our garden, we all have a role to play, and we can all make a difference. It’s easy to get started – just put your lawnmower away this May!
It’s not just wildflowers which benefit from not mowing our lawns this May. Pollinators and other wildlife bring our gardens to life!
Known as nature’s meadow maker, Yellow Rattle, is the single most important plant you need when creating a wildflower meadow.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Yellow rattle, commonly known as the meadow maker, is one of the most important plants you need for a meadow. Without it, vigorous grasses can grow unchecked and smother flowers you want to encourage.
As Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor grows in a meadow the grass will become thinner, making room for plants like Oxeye Daisy, Knapweeds and Vetches to appear. And if you’re lucky, maybe even an orchid will pop up.
Then large bees, especially bumblebees, move in and pollinate the flowers of yellow rattle and it’s large seed pods dry and ripen. This leaves the seeds rattling around inside. Farmers used to use the sound of the rattling seeds as their cue to cut the hay – hence the name.
Yellow Rattle is a very useful starting plant when making a wildflower meadow, but it can be a little tricky to establish. Here are some top tips to get you started:
If you have very fertile soil, it might be trickier to grow Yellow Rattle. Poor and infertile soils are best and following the steps above will help reduce the fertility of your soil over time.
Your go-to guide for transforming places into flower-rich meadows.
Late summer (August-September) is the best time to sow Yellow Rattle. It will not grow successfully if sown in the spring. The seeds can be sown no later than November because they need about 4 months below 5C to germinate in the spring.
Yellow Rattle is easy to collect by hand. Simply hold a paper bag under the ripe seed pod and shake it gently with your fingers. Collecting larger quantities can easily be done using a vacuum or leaf blower.
WATCH: Plantlife’s Sarah Shuttleworth collects Yellow Rattle with a vacuum.
There are a number of reasons why Yellow Rattle may disappear from a meadow, including:
For meadows, we recommend 0.5-2.5kg per hectare/10-20g per m2 if you are collecting your own seed.
There are several possible reasons:
Managing or making meadows, whether in a lawn or larger site, can sometimes lead to prickly problem plants like docks or nettles. Follow our expert advice for managing problem plants.
Yellow Rattle, is the single most important plant you need when creating a wildflower meadow. Here’s everything you need to know.
Want to start a community meadow, but not sure where to begin? Read our guide to creating a flower-filled haven for your local community.
What better way to create nature connection than by starting a community meadow!
Read our guide to creating a wildflower-filled haven for your local community.
Creating a meadow is a really simple way to bring the local community together. It’s a great way for people of all ages to connect with nature – whilst doing something to benefit it at the same time.
Starting a community meadow might seem daunting, but you don’t need to be an expert to begin.
We’ve created this guide to share our top tips, from what to plant, to how to manage your green space year round and how to engage the community.
A community meadow is an area, predominantly of grassland, that is owned and managed by the community. It’s a place where people can come together to connect with nature and help improve the nature in their area.
Meadows often include an array of wonderful wildflowers, which can not only be of benefit to bees, butterflies and other pollinators, but a whole host of wildlife.
These areas usually include places such as parks, road verges, school grounds, village greens, church land or fields.
Now you’ve decided to try and start a community meadow, it’s hard to know where to begin. We’ve got plenty of experience and advice to help you along the way.
Contact your local council – Whether it’s parish, town or district council, reaching out to your local decision makers to promote wildlife-friendly management can make a big difference. Local support can really help to bring about change, whether that’s through a volunteer group or social media page. Check out our Good Meadows Guide for some convincing arguments.
Positive perceptions – Some people might be concerned that not cutting a greenspace as regularly might make it look neglected and untidy. But, framing a greenspace by cutting narrow strips around the wildflower area can offset some negative perceptions. Other concerns about plant height for road safety can be tackled by growing shorter species, which can still support an array of pollinators such as clovers, trefoils, Selfheal and Yarrow.
Communicating at every step – Telling people what and why you are creating a meadow is crucial for understanding. By bringing the community with you and working together, it will be easier to explain the benefits of meadow making. You could write something in the local magazine, talk about your meadow-making journey on social media or put up a sign.
Community activities – Bringing the community together to help create a meadow can be very beneficial. You can run activities, join campaigns or hold events to gather momentum.
Whether it’s your back garden, local park, community field or lawn, wildflower meadows are amazing spaces with so much to offer.
Made up of wildflowers and grasses that return every year, they can bring benefits to people, climate and a huge array of wildlife
Read our guide on How to Grow a Wildflower Meadow here. In the guide you will find everything you need to know, from the first steps to take, to the problem plants to look out for and even the seeds to sow.
Clover in a hay meadow
Three Hagges Woodmeadow in Yorkshire
A pink orchid growing from green grass in a meadow
If you need some help funding your community meadow, these places might be able to offer support:
We hope that this helps you in creating a wonderful community meadow. Do let us know on social media when you have tried these methods and your progress in creating a meadow by tagging us.
Are you feeling inspired, but not sure where to start? Aside from Plantlife’s guidance, a great source of knowledge and personal support can be from meadow groups. A huge variety of groups exist across the country, who manage meadows for hay, livestock or community benefits. These groups could also be good places to start when searching for local seeds or advice.
If you would like to add your community meadow group to our list, please get in touch here.
It's been 25 years since a local campaign helped save Skylark Meadows.
Made up of wildflowers and grasses that return every year, they can bring benefits to people, climate and a huge array of wildlife.
Meadows come to life in the spring and summer, bursting with vibrant wildflowers and buzzing with insects and animals. But species-rich grassland areas, which used to occur commonly throughout Britain, are now amongst the most threatened habitats in the UK.
Approximately 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost across the UK since the 1930s. That’s why wildflowers and meadows are not only beautiful staples of the British countryside, but also crucial habitats that need restoring.
Why are meadows so amazing?
WATCH: Not just a pretty space, this is a living space
So, the more areas that can be turned into wildflower meadows, the better things get for nature.
No matter the size of your land, the process of making a wildflower meadow is pretty much the same. Follow these steps to start your meadow-making journey:
Before sowing seed, in late summer or autumn, you must cut the grass as short as possible. The cuttings must then be removed because most meadow species thrive in nutrient-poor soil with low fertility levels. Leaving the cuttings on the grass to rot down, both stifles delicate seedlings, and adds nutrients.
This can easily be done using a strimmer or mower and the cuttings removed with a rake.
It is really important to control any problem plants that could prevent your meadow from thriving. For example, species such as Nettle, Creeping Thistle and Dock can rapidly spread and crowd wildflowers in poorly managed meadows.
To stop this, it is best to pull these plants out by hand, cut their heads before they set seed or spot spray them. Bramble and scrub will also need to be controlled before creating a meadow.
If you have lots of problem plants, it will be easier (if possible) to try and create a meadow on another piece of land.
Meadow on Dartmoor
Orchids in a meadow
A #NoMowMay garden
Bare ground is simply an area that has no plants living in it. It provides germination gaps and growing space for meadow flowers and grasses. Having about 50-70% of land as bare ground will increase your chances of creating a wildflower meadow.
This can be done by hand with vigorous raking, strimming or using a rented garden scarifier.
Sprinkle and gently trample in your seeds, which can be mixed with sand for easier spreading. During drier spells, water the ground if possible, but do not wash away the seeds.
Then, over the next few months pull up any Creeping Thistle and Dock or cut the flower heads off and remove before they set seed (these can spread fast and smother wildflowers).
Knowing a bit about your soil can also really help you to choose which seeds to sow. There are many factors that can influence what will grow including the soil type, fertility, location, weather, availability of light and what’s already growing there.
Don’t worry if your meadow looks a bit plain in its first year, many perennials take at least a couple of years to establish.
We hope that these tips help you in creating a wonderful meadow. Do share your meadow-making journey with us on social media by tagging us.
From bumblebees to birds and fungi to flies, meadows are micro-cities of wildlife.
Wildflower meadows, a staple of the British countryside, are a buzz of activity, especially in the spring and summer. It’s not just the wildflowers and fungi that rely on their diverse vegetation, in fact, a range of wildlife can call these habitats home. By growing a meadow, you can also create a home or hunting ground for bees, butterflies, invertebrates, birds, mammals and reptiles.
Here are some of the animals you might spot in a meadow:
Our friends at Buglife can tell you more
Buzz over to the Bumblebee Trust here.
Flutter over to Butterfly Conservation for a bit more
Fly over to the RSPB for a bit more
Meander over to the Mammal Society to find out more
Slither over to Amphibian and Reptile Conservation to find out more
As COP28 draws to a close, one thing is crystal clear – we are at a pivotal moment.
Our CEO Ian Dunn reflects on the results of the climate conference and why there is reason to hope.
The 28th UN Climate Conference of Parties has just drawn to a close in Dubai, during which there had been fierce negotiations over the future of fossil fuels.
In the early hours of this morning the gavel went down and 198 governments agreed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner… so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”. This wording is not as strong as we had hoped, but it is the first time fossil fuels have ever been explicitly mentioned in a final agreement (in almost 30 years of climate COPs) and as the UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell said, it is the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels.
This issue is at the heart of climate action and this agreement was long overdue.
There are other key outcomes from this COP which give us reasons for hope:
More specifically focused on the intertwined climate and nature crises, we welcome two new initiatives coming out of this COP.
1.COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action
The acknowledgement and recognition of the adverse impacts of climate change on agriculture and food systems, and on billions of people including smallholders that are dependent on their resilience for food and livelihoods, is a great step in the right direction. Just two years ago, there was little or no mention of this issue, yet 158 governments endorsed the Declaration at COP28.
2. COP28 Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People
This was an absolutely vital step in ensuring the climate and biodiversity crises are no longer considered as separate issues. We have known for a long time that they are fundamentally and intrinsically linked, and this is the first step in connecting the outcomes of the UNFCCC COP28 and the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
This announcement was made: ‘At COP28 during Nature, Land Use and Ocean Day, we affirm that there is no path to fully achieve the near- and long-term goals of the Paris Agreement or the 2030 goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework without urgently addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation together in a coherent, synergetic and holistic manner, in accordance with the best available science.’
Eighteen governments have endorsed this declaration so far and we need to see many more signing up to this joined-up approach in the weeks ahead.
At Plantlife, we work tirelessly to bring the value of grasslands to the forefront of conversations around farming, nature, biodiversity and climate, both in the UK and internationally. Covering more than half the Earth’s land surface and with the livelihoods of around 800 million people depending on them, the importance of grasslands and savannahs cannot be underestimated.
More generally, this COP marked a turning point for the role of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition of their contribution in not only safeguarding 80% of the world’s biodiversity, but their knowledge in living in true harmony with nature. Adopting this way of thinking will be a pivotal step in combating the climate crisis. Plantlife is aware of the importance of Indigenous knowledge particularly when it comes to Important Plant Areas (IPAs), with one of the criteria for identification being related to cultural significance.
You can read more about IPAs here specifically the Chiquitano people of Bolivia who identified 18 IPA sites to protect the Chiquitano dry forest which many of the community depend on for their food and livelihoods.
It is safe to say there was a healthy dose of concern and scepticism about this COP. What would come out of it? Would this be ambitious enough to secure a safe future for generations to come – from large cities in the Global North to the Small Island Developing States on the frontline of the climate crisis? The reference to fossil fuels and the language in the final text can be considered a win, but now we look to parties to solidify the ‘how’ and the ‘when’ of implementing the measures to ensure we stay at or below 1.5 degrees of warming.
One thing is crystal clear: we are at a pivotal moment, for the stability of our planet and all life on Earth, and Plantlife will keep working to show how wild plants and fungi can be at the heart of the solution.
Read how 2 lichens were saved, from a tree infected with ash dieback, in a translocation rescue mission in the temperate rainforest.
Did you know that the rainforest can glow in the dark? Or that it’s home to plants which were on the Earth before the dinosaurs?
It’s the final few days of COP28, but arguably one of the most important discussions is yet to come – Food and Agriculture.
The results of these topics will have far-reaching consequences on our wild plants and fungi. Our Grassland Advocacy Officer, Jo Riggall, explains why.
As I write this, I’m eating a piece of toast. As you read this, you may be eating something too. All 8.1 billion of us need food. Just like other types of consumption, such as oil and gas, our food consumption requires and releases energy. In fact, the food system is responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans.
It therefore makes sense that food is a central focus of the climate Conference of the Parties (CoP28) taking place at the moment in Dubai.
The CoP28 theme today is ‘Food and Agriculture’, which is a good opportunity to put down my toast and highlight some of the food and agriculture discussions at CoP28, and what they mean for wild plants and fungi.
We rely on wild plants and fungi for so much, however they are the overlooked centrepieces at the heart of all ecosystems.
Take grasslands: the livelihoods of around 800 million people depend on them and they cover more than 50% of the world’s land.
Imagine nomadic reindeer herders navigating the Steppes in Mongolia, or small-scale pastoralists grazing their livestock on Kenyan savannahs. Humans are part of a virtuous Venn diagram, with grasslands at the centre:
It’s important to differentiate this approach to grassland management from the more intensive farming, that shatters the mutualistic relationship between people and the natural environment.
Intensive, large-scale agriculture relies on greenhouse gas-emitting synthetic fertilisers and ploughing, with tightly packed livestock damaging the sensitive flora and degrading the soil.
That’s why we’re looking to world leaders at CoP28 to recognise the value of healthy grasslands and savannahs as part of a sustainable food system, that helps boost biodiversity and tackle climate change.
We need joined-up action across governments and their policies tackling farming, food security, public health, nature & net zero.
At CoP28, 134 countries have signed up to the United Arab Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, committing to integrate food into their climate plans by 2025.
This could be an important step towards real action to bring down emissions from global agriculture, in tandem with supporting farmers, pastoralists, and smallholders who farm in a low-carbon way.
However, alongside real action there’s also real risk – of greenwashing. We should be sceptical of subsidies that still go towards funding intensive agriculture, or untested technological solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We’ll be watching how governments put this Declaration into practice.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether governments will make tangible commitments to actually shift food production away from intensive agricultural practices.
Will governments stop harmful agricultural subsidies and instead pay and support less intensive farming, that helps restore swathes of degraded grassland?
Will they ignore the huge farming and fertiliser lobby to help farmers break free from costly input cycles?
Will the rights of indigenous people and local communities to their land and traditional pastoralism be respected?
We want the protection, sustainable management, and restoration of healthy grasslands to be meaningfully incorporated into countries’ climate and biodiversity strategies.
As I finish my meal, these are the questions I will ponder ahead of CoP28’s final few days. The solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises are by no means bitesize, but I have hope, if we’re all sat together at the same table.
Jo Riggall
Grasslands like meadows and parks are not just home to wildflowers, they are also an important habitat for a colourful type of fungi which prefer farmland to forests – waxcaps.
Every autumn one of the UK’s most colourful natural displays takes place: jewel-coloured waxcaps emerge through the grass across our countryside, cities and even some of our gardens. Let’s find them!
Waxcaps are types of mushrooms known for their shiny-looking caps. Together with other types of fascinatingly named fungi called pinkgills, earthtongues, club and coral fungi – they form a group called “grassland fungi”.
Waxcaps and grassland fungi come in a rainbow of different colours including vibrant violets, yellows, greens and pinks.
They also come in weird and wonderful shapes, which can help you to identify the species you’re looking at.
Chris Jones is the Warden at the Kenfig National Nature Reserve, one of our Dynamic Dunescapes sites, and has worked as a practical conservationist for over 25 years.
Kenfig is one of the largest sand dune systems in Wales and provides a unique habitat for a variety of rare and specialised species, including over 20 species of Waxcap fungi.
‘Waxcap fungi are commonly found in grasslands and meadows, and they are known for their ecological importance. They are often found in areas with short, grazed vegetation, but they can also occur in disturbed habitats, such as lawns and roadside verges.
Waxcaps are mostly found in the late summer and autumn, typically from September to November, depending on the local weather – but you can find them all year round.
The meadows where waxcaps are found are known as ‘waxcap grasslands’. These grasslands need specific conditions for waxcaps to thrive and are becoming rare.
On waxcap grasslands, waxcap fungi form partnerships with plants, where they exchange nutrients with the roots of host plants, benefiting both the fungi and the plants. This only happens in habitats with a high level of biodiversity, which the app aims to identify.
Waxcap fungi are fascinating, not only for their vibrant colours, but also for their significance as indicators of healthy grasslands. Their conservation is important for maintaining biodiversity and preserving these unique and beautiful fungi for future generations to enjoy.
Many waxcap species are considered rare or threatened, primarily due to habitat loss and changes in land management practices such as tree planting and intensive agriculture. If you find any, please record them on the Waxcap Watch app.
‘I LOVE Waxcaps, they are AMAZING! It is ridiculously hard to pick a favourite, but if I had to choose it would be… all of them.’
This autumn, help Plantlife find Britain’s most colourful and important fungi – waxcaps.
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