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Hedgerow Audit
Project
The Walberton Action Group (WAG) agreed to support
the Sussex Hedgerow Survey which was coordinated by the
Sussex Biodiversity Partnership (SBP).
The SBP Survey is trying to identify the more
important hedges and to gauge how many important hedges there
are per square kilometre in the different areas of the county.
"Important" usually means "old" and can be estimated from the
variety of woody species - 7 spp per 30 metre length provides a
yardstick. The survey can start as soon as the hedges are in
leaf and the results will be sent to Woodsmill by the end of
September.
A steering group has been set up to coordinate the
work. The Parish will be divided using the same partitions as in
the 1995 habitat survey and two surveyers will be allocated to
each compartment. The hedge classification has changed slightly
and a new survey form from the SBP will be used. Arrangements
will be made to train any surveyors that feel they need it. A
training day will be held, on the morning of Saturday 31st May
It will be the responsibility of the surveyors to identify,contact, and liaise with the appropriate landowners. It
is hoped that the surveyors will complete their work by the end
of August to allow time for the results to be collated locally
before being passed to the
Sussex Biodiversity
Centre at Woodsmill.
The results, beside contributing to the Sussex-wide
study, will also help WAG by identifying ways of conserving the
hedgerows in conjunction with the landowners.
From notes by Peter Brown
Contact:- Peter Brown - phone - (01243) 551829
Note:- If phoning from overseas replace the UK
area code (01243) with (+44 1243)
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