Festivals in the Shropshire Hills have been celebrating the AONB’s 60th anniversary. From walking the hills during Church Stretton and Bishop’s Castle Walking Festivals, watching the Ice Queen’s banishment at the Green Man Festival in Clun, to tossing hay bales and trying out scything at our recent Hay Meadow Festival.  The Church Stretton Arts Festival is running until 12th August, celebrating music and visual arts in the heart of the hills.  Thank you to everyone for celebrating and supporting 60 years of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

*Sunday 5th August, Big Butterfly Count - join Rhona, from Butterfly Conservation, for a walk to count the butterflies on the Onny Meadows at the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre, 1.30 - 3.30pm.  http://www.shropshirehillsdiscoverycentre.co.uk/event/444/big-butterfly-count---meadows-butterfly-count.htm

Around 350 people attended the Shropshire Hills Hay Meadow Festival on Saturday 7th July -  National Meadows Day (and the England v Sweden match).  Our flower-rich grasslands and roadside verges are some of the most important habitats in the AONB.  The festival set out to raise awareness and celebrate this special landscape and its wealth of wildlife on its 60th anniversary.  There was something for everyone from guided walks and games, storytelling and song, to craft stalls and competitions. Thank you to everyone involved and everyone who came in making the day such a success.  Follow the link to view photographs from the day http://www.shropshirehillsaonb.co.uk/2018/07/25/small-but-exquisitely-formed/

We have teamed up with Shropshire Hills AONB Trust to raise money from visitors for conservation projects all over the hills.  This year’s big project is Caering for Caradoc. We’d like to give every visitor the chance to give a little something back by making a small donation to caring for the future of this special place.  We are working with Shropshire Hills Tourism, Buy From Shropshire, Shropshire and Beyond, and Historic England to restore the ramparts of this important and much loved hill. Thousands of people stand on its summit and admire the peerless 360 degree views.  If everybody who walks to the top of the hill in the next 12 months donates £1, we’ll have enough money to fix the furrows caused by years of wear.  For more information and to get involved, please contact Nigel.McDonald@Shropshire.gov.uk

The AONB is home to the endangered white-clawed crayfish. It is the UK’s only native crayfish, but in recent years, due to a combination of declining habitat and the invasive American signal crayfish it is under threat.  To discover how white-clawed crayfish are doing, we have teamed up with the Marches Crayfish Partnership to survey streams in the Clun Catchment.  In early July, supported by staff from Environment Agency and a Natural England licenced crayfish expert 17 volunteers came along to a Crayfish Training Day. The morning session focussed on crayfish ecology, whilst following the obligatory disinfection procedures to safeguard against crayfish plague, the afternoon was spent on the River allowing volunteers to polish their survey skills where they got to grips with handling, sexing and measuring Crayfish. 

So far, our Crayfish Champions have surveyed 3 sites.  The results have been mixed; with low numbers recorded on one site and none on another. But on the positive side, native Crayfish have been found on a section of River where they were thought to have died out. The surveys will be completed by September and the data we collect will inform future white-clawed crayfish conservation strategies in the Marches. For everything crayfish see: https://www.buglife.org.uk/uk-crayfish-hub 

Thank you to our volunteer recruiters, who have been attending local events, helping to raise awareness and encourage people to support Friends of the Shropshire Hills AONB. It costs from £3/month but your money goes a long way.  Subscriptions go directly into the AONB Conservation Fund, which supports local projects that help wildlife and enhance traditional landscapes across the AONB.  Funding for these projects is very hard to get, so Friends donations make a big difference.  Follow the link to read summaries of the projects supported this year http://www.shropshirehillsaonb.co.uk/a-special-place/shropshire-hills-aonb-trust/conservation-fund/  

...and if you’re heading to Clun Carnival, on 4th August, look out for our stand and come and say hello!

...Now, as the oldest National Park approaches its 70th anniversary, comes a chance to renew this mission.” 

The Government has launched an independent review of National Parks and AONBs in England, led by the journalist Julian Glover, with this very positive starting point.  The Review will examine the statutory purposes for National Parks and AONBs, how effectively they are being met, and their alignment with the goals of the 25-Year Environment Plan.  It will look at the governance and financing of existing designated areas and the case for extension or creation of new ones.   It will also look at how to enhance the environment and biodiversity, how to connect more people with the natural environment and how communities can be supported.  

The review “aims not to diminish the character or independence of our designated landscapes, or to impose new burdens on them and the people who live and work in the areas they cover. Instead, its purpose is to ask what might be done better, what changes could assist them, and whether definitions and systems - which in many cases date back to their original creation - are still sufficient.”

This is the most significant review for many years and a great opportunity.  A call for evidence will be issued later this year and the Review Panel is being invited to the Shropshire Hills.  The AONB Partnership will be preparing its own response, and other organisations and individuals will be able to make their own.  The Review is due to make its recommendations to Government in 2019. 

One of the aims of Our Common Cause is to raise awareness and understanding of common land and the practice of commoning. Tom Lloyd, commoner on the Long Mynd, has written about being a commoner …

“I was born on to the family farm at Minton on the southern edge of Long Mynd. Since finishing education I have worked on the farm, farming sheep and beef cattle like my father and his father before him.

We generally run two flocks of sheep, one of which is predominantly lowland, these remain on the farm itself. The other is a hill flock which we graze on the Long Mynd using our grazing rights attributed to the farm here at Minton.

Follow link to read full article…http://www.shropshirehillsaonb.co.uk/aonb-partnership/our-common-cause/

Caring for God’s Acre, our office neighbours, runs a regular volunteer task team, working in churchyards and cemeteries across Shropshire and nearby.  The South Shropshire group meets on a Tuesday.  They carry out a variety of traditional skills, mainly scything at the moment, but including dry stone walling and lime mortaring, as well as coppicing, scrub clearance, raking and other more general management tasks.  The group record what wildlife they see, and separate biological recording volunteer days are also held through the year (fungi will be coming up in the Autumn). 

Although mainly working in churchyards, Caring for God’s Acre is a non-religious charity and everybody is welcome.  If you’re interested in volunteering (they challenge you to find a conservation group with better cake!), please contact Alex via phone on 01588 673041, or email alex@cfga.org.uk and have a chat to see if this is for you. 

http://www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk/