In different ways and at different levels, local communities have a vital role in looking after their local environment, writes Henry Haslam.
In Taunton itself, we can see the value of small local groups of volunteers such as the Friends of Longrun Meadow and the Friends of Victoria Park.
Nearby, there is Maidenbrook Country Park and Somerset Wood, managed by local councils with help from volunteers.
On the larger scale, Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs) were set up in the 2021 Environment Act.
They are locally-led strategies, bringing people and organisations together to plan and take targeted action for nature recovery and improvement of the environment.
Each strategy identifies key environmental issues to focus on and sets out actions that contribute to tackling those issues.
Examples include local residents planting wildflowers for pollinators, farmers creating new habitats, councils thinking how to ensure sustainable development, and water companies looking for ways to improve the water quality of a river catchment.
The government has recently made £26m available to support local areas to deliver their LNRSs.
Somerset Council has its own ‘Local Nature Recovery Strategy’ document online.
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Different situations arise when a community has a battle to fight, to put an end to the destruction of their precious local environment.
The community at Achiltibuie, for example, in the far northwest of Scotland, had a fight to stop the damage being done to the sea floor by dredging for scallop.
The sea bed here is home to maerl, a coral-like seaweed, which provides a home for scallops, crabs and fish.
Fifteen years ago, this sea floor was threatened by industrial-scale scallop dredgers, dragging heavy nets across the seabed.
A voluntary ban proved ineffective, so local campaign groups lobbied for a legal ban, against opposition from the industry.
The legal ban that came into effect in 2016 effectively saved this habitat from destruction.
In the ten years since then, the seabed has flourished, the maerl providing a breeding ground for crabs, lobsters, prawns, herrings and much else.
Here, as elsewhere, it is amazing how quickly the sea bed can recover, once human interference is brought to an end.
There is so much good work going on, much of it unseen and under-appreciated.
Local people looking after their local environment.
If local people don’t care about the place where they live, it is unlikely that anyone else will.
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