News archive 2010

February 2010

	Dyrham Park walk

Wildflower Grasslands Project launch at Dyrham Park

After an Introduction by Chief Executive Steve Grainger and with presentations from members of the AWT Living Landscape Team and Natural England, the Trust's Wildflower Grassland Project got off to an impressive start in 2010 at Dyrham Park on 3 Feb.

With over 40 invited guests, including landowners, farmers, representatives from Local Authorities, Parish Councils and conservation organisations, the project launched in the north and east of the Avon region, bringing together and establishing a network of parties in the region who were keen to hear all about the Trust's landscape scale conservation project.

Last year, as the first step in a programme of work aimed at expanding and linking up the dwindling areas of WildflowerGrassland, the Living Landscape team contacted 125 farmers and landowners and surveyed over 1000 hectares of land. This was mostly around Chew Valley, Stowey Sutton and around Lansdown and St. Catherines Valley just north of Bath. This year will see the team surveying land and working with landowners in the Cam Valley, Bathampton, Cleeve Wood, Dyrham, Horton and Lower Wood areas of the region.

The event also included a guided walk around the grasslands of Dyrham Park. Many of those present were able to help the project in a very valuable way by drawing on large scale maps to indicate where they had local knowledge of grasslands that might benefit from the attentions of the project.

A grand day was had by one and all - despite the weather!

	Simon King
	Dick King-Smith

January 2010

New Year Honours for Trust President and Vice-President

Simon King, President of the Trust, received an OBE for services to wildlife photography and to conservation and our vice-president, author Dick King-Smith, received an OBE for services to children's literature.

In the past 30 years Dick King-Smith has written dozens of books, selling over five million copies in the UK alone, and had one of his stories, The Sheep-Pig, turned into the hit film Babe. The 1995 film catapulted the author, who is to global fame. His first story, The Fox Busters, was published when he was in his 50s in 1978.