And a good news story to end the CJS News year – hope you all have a very Merry Christmas

New wetland habitat thriving on Buckinghamshire’s River Thame - Environment Agency

The Environment Agency help fund Eythrope Wetland, transforming a meadow into a wetland for 122 bird species, including teal, lapwing and ringed plover.

With the United Nations Biodiversity COP15 taking place over the past week, local groups are making a remarkable difference to wildlife flourishing along the River Thame in Buckinghamshire – and showing what can be achieved when partners work together.

A combined 32 hectares of formerly low-biodiversity floodplain have been transformed thanks to the creation of new wetlands alongside the river – firstly on land at Eythrope owned and managed by the Waddesdon Estate, and followed by Manor Farm in Chearsley.

With a Water Environment Grant of £360,450 from the Environment Agency, and expertise from the Freshwater Habitats Trust, at the Eythrope site, the River Thame Conservation Trust took on its first wetland and backwater construction project – and the biggest it had ever commissioned.

Work on the ground at Eythrope Wetland began 2 years ago, with the excavation of more than 11,000 square metres of polluted topsoil to clear the way for creating new wetland habitat at the 10-hectare site.