traditional orchard survey
LATEST NEWS: The Traditional Orchard inventory of Wales is now under way and we need volunteers to help. If you have an orchard of your own or local knowledge tell us about it and get our free wildlife and management booklet.
Traditionally managed orchards are a recognised ‘Priority Habitat’ under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) due to their high wildlife value. Read more about the importance of orchards to biodiversity by clicking here. As part of the BAP targets, over the past five years, our English project has been locating and mapping traditional orchards in order to maintain and preserve this unique and special habitat. To date we have mapped over 35,000 traditional orchards, covering nearly 17,000 hectares of England’s towns and countryside. View the maps here and see the project results for England here. This work was part-funded by Natural England and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. This work was part-funded by Natural England and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. To discuss the project, or orchards in general, please contact steve.oram@ptes.org or call 020 7498 4533.
In addition, we are encouraging more traditional methods of orchard management, raising the profile of local fruit and heritage varieties, working with many other orchard projects, and contributing to orchard conservation wherever possible. We are constantly improving and adding to the inventory but a main part of this relies on volunteers checking our results on the ground, so if you are interested in orchards, local history, or the environment and would like to help, please get in touch.
