Stunning photos show how Severn Trent is helping wildlife and environment by creating new habitats
They’re the stunning nature and wildlife photos showing how Severn Trent has been boosting biodiversity by creating new habitats across the region.
In April 2020 the company launched its Great Big Nature Boost commitments, planting 1.3m trees and helping to improve and enhance 5000ha of habitat.
Yet latest figures have revealed that over 11,500 hectares is now thriving across the region.
And these stunning pictures show how the schemes, including projects with the National Trust and Wildlife Trusts, have created beautiful, improved habitats for fauna and flora, trees and wildlife.
They include sphagnum moss, planted to aid peatland restoration across Combs Moss moorland in the Peak District. As well as restoring nature-rich habitats the project, led by Moors for the Future Partnership, helps reduce potential flooding and boosts water quality.
Severn Trent also teamed up with the National Trust to plant thousands of trees.
Other biodiversity projects have included helping fund the reintroduction of families of beavers to Willington Wetlands in Derbyshire and the Idle Valley Nature Reserve in Nottinghamshire for the first time in 800 years. The schemes, run by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trusts, have seen the cute mammals create dams to slow flow from waterways and onto wetlands, to help prevent flooding.
Bryony Harrison is Senior Biodiversity Project Manager at Severn Trent and praised her team and partners for delivering the projects. She said: “We’re delighted to have helped create so many wonderful new habitats, including many with our partners and community groups.
“Our team are very proud of delivering these projects – but making sure we are doing the right thing for nature.
“I’ve always been passionate about the environment from childhood so, this has been the dream job for me.”
Other projects have included creating flower rich road-side verges in Shropshire and reinstating meadows in Warwickshire to boost populations of wildflowers, fungi, bees, butterflies and bats.
Severn Trent has also supported farmers across the region to make biodiversity improvements on their farms helping to reduce the use of pesticides, planting hedgerows and to improve river water quality.
And the water company has also helped fund flower-rich mini-meadows on farmlands across the region, which are great for supporting bees and butterflies. The meadows improve water quality by acting as a natural filter to help with flood prevention.
Bryony’s award-winning team also help with ensuring Severn Trent capital projects have a positive environmental impact, with the aim of boosting ‘biodiversity net gain’ at each site by 15 per cent – well above Government requirements of 10 per cent.
