Countryfile Magazine Awards 2012: honours for London Wetland Centre and the Great Crane Project
The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is delighted this week to have been given not one but two awards by the readers of Countryfile Magazine.
London Wetland Centre, opened in 2000, was voted the favourite nature reserve and the Great Crane Project, which has been reintroducing Eurasian cranes to the Somerset Levels and Moors, was awarded best conservation project.
WWT Chief Executive Martin Spray said:
These awards mean a lot to WWT. We strongly believe in engaging people in conservation, so to be voted for by the readers of Countryfile is a sign we are getting something right. Both London Wetland Centre and the Great Crane Project are thriving as conservation projects and I believe that is because of their healthy communities of volunteers, visitors and staff.
Peter Scott, founder of WWT, had the vision to create a Wetland Centre from the old Barn Elms Reservoirs. Over the last decade, it has teemed with wildlife right on the doorstep of 8 million Londoners. Besides the human visitors, 180 bird species visit each year, and thriving populations of bats, water voles, dragon flies and grass snakes inhabit the 105 acres of wetland. Anyone can find out more here.
The Great Crane Project, run by staff and volunteers from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), RSPB and Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, with major funding from Viridor Credits Environmental Company, aims to restore healthy populations of Eurasian cranes after an absence of 400 years.
Eurasian cranes are carefully hatched and hand-reared at a special ‘crane school’ at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, before being released at a secret location on the Somerset Levels and Moors. There are now 33 cranes in the wild flock and there will be about 100 by the end of the project. From Somerset it is expected that the population will spread to other wetland sites across the UK.
Cranes were once common across much of Britain and are featured in the place names of many towns and villages such as Cranmore, Cranleigh and Cranfield. It is thought that their extinction as a breeding species happened about 400 years ago and is linked to a combination of hunting and the draining of wetlands to create agricultural land.
The wetlands of the Somerset Levels and Moors are the perfect place to start reintroducing cranes. The Great Crane Project works very closely with local communities and farmers in particular to help monitor the cranes.
