Conversations about Conservation

Amongst the many things I am enjoying about being a YWT volunteer is the opportunity to meet like-minded people, learn from them, and share my own experiences about wildlife and nature conservation.

This is exactly what YWT's Discovery Days are all about, as Marie Fooks, Volunteering Support Manager, explained to an audience of some 25 members of the volunteer community who had gathered on a bright and breezy day in late February. We'd been brought together to learn about one of the real gems amongst Yorkshire's mix of natural habitats - the Chalk Stream.

Fortunately for us all, Jon Traill, Living Landscapes Manager and Calum Rae, Project Officer for the Wolds & Holderness were on hand to share their considerable knowledge of chalk streams and the work being done by the Trust, its partners and its volunteers to look after them.

First it fell to Marie to set the day up by inviting us to pair up and introduce ourselves to each other. Something I've learned from the wonderful group of YWT volunteers I work with is that they do like to chat, and so it was no surprise that the meeting room was soon filled with a hubbub of conversations.  New connections were made, and old ones renewed....It turned out that Paul, who I got talking to, started out his birding life at some of the same spots in Hampshire as I did. Happy days !

A Rare and Precious Gem

Introductions over, attention turned to Jon and Calum. Beginning with the basics they described how chalk streams are rivers fed by springs issuing from the Chalk - the soft, porous rock that forms the low, rolling hills of the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds and which extends southwards in a broad belt to the Downs of southern England.

You can see our chalk streams on this map. It's noticeable that there's very little surface water over the Yorkshire Wolds themselves. Because of the rock properties of the chalk, rainfall percolates as groundwater to emerge along spring lines where it meets impermeable clays that floor the Holderness Plain and Vale of York.

Rare and Precious? Well, yes .... owing to a particular combination of geology and climate, England is home to over 80 % of the World's chalk streams. A gem? Again, yes - very much so. At their brilliant best, chalk streams are endowed with cool, crystal-clear, mineral-rich waters that support an immensely rich community of plant and animal life. Such is the diversity and abundance of the biota of our chalk streams that they have been spoken of as "England's Rain Forests". The onus is firmly on us to look after them.

Challenges ...

Sadly, the state of many of our chalk streams is some way short of their very best. The vast volumes of water the chalk carries - some 50% of England's groundwater - means that it is forever under a range of human-induced pressures.  Thus, over-abstraction of water in the more populous parts of southern England has greatly impacted the amount of water in the chalk-fed rivers that flow there. 

Whilst this is less the case in our part of the world, the straightening of water courses (done in the past to maximize flow into water mills) has impacted the value and range of habitats in and around the streams - river banks are very much part of the chalk stream ecosystem. Moreover, as anyone familiar with the area knows well, East Yorkshire’s farmed landscape has changed over time, with large arable fields now dominating the region. If not properly managed,  run-off from agricultural land may be a problem. This is because nutrients derived from agrochemicals can seep into water courses causing algal blooms which potentially lead to the oxygen content - the life blood of a healthy river - becoming depleted.

...and Solutions

These pressures are well acknowledged. Happily, something is being done to address them.  As outlined by Calum and Jon, The National Chalk Stream Strategy has been established to improve three cornerstones of healthy chalk streams - water flow, water quality, and the physical state of the streams and their surroundings.  YWT's Skerne Wetlands nature reserve forms part of  the River Hull Headwaters flagship programme – and is one of twelve nationally - being managed under this strategy. As we were to hear, YWT volunteers are a major part of delivering this work.

The strategy is multi-faceted and numerous stakeholders are involved. Balancing national concerns with local considerations is important. It was in this context that we learned that the YWT working relationships with the region's farmers and landowners are key, and that trust and engagement - gained over many years - are central to these relationships.

Engagement comes in many guises and there are different audiences to address - farmers, landowners, the general public are obvious examples. Demonstrating how nature-based solutions can address the concerns of other interest groups really works. A good illustration of this point is that the great efforts made in the restoration of Driffield Trout Stream have benefited anglers as well as wildlife. The wildlife itself can help start conversations too - I was very pleased to hear mention of Kiplingcotes Quarry (one of my favourite chalkland reserves) and its Marbled White butterflies (one of my favourite chalkland butterflies) in this regard.

Given the importance of the farming community to chalk stream conservation, it was entirely appropriate that our venue for the day was Southburn Farm in "chalk stream country" near Driffield, which has been managed for many years as a successful commercial farm yet with conservation very much in mind.

We saw good evidence of this when we walked around part of the property after lunch. As Jon pointed out various features of the farm, a pair of Common Buzzards mewed overhead and a bevy of roe deer ran across our path, white rumps bouncing. 

There were wide, wildflower-rich field margins, thick and healthy hedges.... and the clear waters of Eastburn Beck, a chalk stream which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

During the course of the day, we learned that some restoration work may take many years to reach fruition. This is the case with Driffield Trout Stream, where part of the original water course has been restored.  Other solutions are much simpler and easier to achieve. For example, mooring a tree trunk in a stream splits the flow, creating ripples, eddies and pools and with them variations in the river bed that diversify the available habitat types. Well-vegetated river banks, protected from erosion by wooden piles, help a lot too. These are simple, cost-effective solutions that can be built upon.

Volunteers - A key part of the story

It was fantastic to hear recognition from Jon and Calum about the huge part YWT's volunteers play in improving our chalk streams, with work programmes relying heavily on their efforts. I saw some of this at first hand last summer, when I spent a day with the Skerne volunteer survey team. You can read about that day here.

The survey work they do - checking on water quality, the flow of the water courses and the river life provides a sound scientific underpinning to restoration and maintenance work.  As well as that, it's the volunteers who take a major role in practical conservation work like hedge-laying and dealing with invasive non-native species such as Himalayan Balsam.

The wider picture - joining things up

Our session with Jon and Calum came to a conclusion by putting our chalk-themed reserves in their wider context. Nature reserves are of course havens for wildlife but they can be very isolated -  taken together, the Trust has over 100 reserves yet these are tiny proportion of Yorkshire's land area. Opportunities to improve this while still leaving land available for farming and so on do exist, as exemplified by Leven Carrs Wetlands. Here, unproductive farmland in the floodplain of the River Hull near Beverley is being turned into a network of fen mosaic and wet grassland that is fantastic for breeding wading birds including lapwing and curlew. Thus a landscape-based approach - which inevitably involves YWT working with a wide range of stakeholders - is a wholly beneficial vision of the future.

Final thoughts

There was a genuine buzz around this Discovery Day. I am confident that my fellow volunteers will have come away with a really positive impression of all the work being done in and around our chalk streams. Hopefully there will be more of the same to come!

I have one final, final thought to share. There is one aspect of chalk streams that I haven't mentioned until now ... and that is their sheer intrinsic beauty. I am not at all sure that my literary skills are sufficient to describe them in a way that would do them proper justice, so I simply will leave you with this image and with the hope that you are encouraged to go and experience them for yourself.