SRA Annual Report 2023-24: Adaptations and Associations
The SRA is keen to encourage more working together on the Somerset Levels & Moors, to strengthen flood resilience, and enable different kinds of adaptation to various water-related threats and opportunities. Between 2019 and 2023, the SRA and the EU’s Interreg 2 Seas programme jointly funded an initiative called Adapting the Levels. One positive and popular part of this was the development of Moor Associations for local farmers and landowners. In March 2023, the SRA Board agreed to fund a follow-up to that initiative called Adaptations & Associations on the Somerset Levels & Moors. In 2023-24, various activities therefore ensued.
Adaptation
Climate adaptation toolkits produced as part of Adapting the Levels were sent to all town and parish councils in Somerset between April 2023 and June 2023.
One especially enthusiastic recipient was Glastonbury Town Council.
In October 2023, funded by the SRA as part of the Adaptations & Associations project, Somerset Wildlife Trust and Glastonbury Town Council began working together on the question: “How can we help Glastonbury adapt to climate change?”
As a first step, a Climate Adaptation Training event was held in Glastonbury Town Hall. This brought together the Trust’s climate adaptation team with around 25 residents, community group members and councillors. In the months that followed, themes and priority areas for action were chosen by Glastonbury people. They focused upon local needs and desires for:
- adapting to flooding
- planting more trees and plants
- installing green roofs and walls
- engaging with local planning
A bespoke climate adaptation plan for Glastonbury was published in August 2024.
Towards the end of March 2024, Somerset Wildlife Trust’s climate adaptation team also held a training event with members of the Polden Environment Network. Discussions there centred upon:
- Reducing flooding risks
- Improving and increasing green spaces
- Sharing knowledge and raising awareness
- Local empowerment and community planning
As at Glastonbury, moves to create a bespoke local climate adaptation plan then stretched beyond March 2024 and the official purview of this Annual Report.
Moor Associations
Land use on the Somerset Levels and Moors is very fragmented. For example, on Aller Moor (140 fields, 285 hectares) there are 37 landowners. For several years now, the SRA has therefore backed the development of Moor Associations – formal groupings of local farmers and landowners – for two main reasons.
Firstly, to help members find new ways of working together for their mutual benefit, in line with the 20 Year Somerset Flood Action Plan’s original goal of supporting “better management of the most vulnerable and challenging parts of the Somerset Levels, with the consent of owners and occupiers, with the intent of helping them to remain profitable and build greater resilience to climate and economic change”. Advantages of working together include greater collective buying power, more machinery sharing, better grazing arrangements and improved farmland infrastructure. For example, members have access to two communal Bos rotary cutter machines purchased as part of the Adapting the Levels initiative. Used in ditches and along verges, these machines help to improve drainage.
The second purpose, simply put, is that it is easier for other organisations to engage with broadly united associations instead of dozens of individuals. More of what people want can get done quicker. So, for example, Moor Associations have been able to get funding from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) for a Lidar drone for digitally mapping moors to accuracy levels of two centimetres, to help predict impacts on land; a representative sits on Defra’s national Paludiculture Steering Committee, which is looking at ways of producing food on peat with high water tables; and they are involved with two trials for growing and harvesting climate change resilient, wet-tolerant crops.
Five Moor Associations started before April 2023: the forerunner in 2018 was the West Moor Futures Group, followed by Tealham and Tadham Moor, Moorlinch, Curry Moor and Aller Moor (Beer Wall to Aller Drove).
In 2023-24, funded by the SRA, the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group SouthWest (FWAG SW) led efforts to establish five more. In early 2024, four associations got going on Northmoor, Penzoy, Queen’s Sedgemoor, and Pawlett Hams to West Huntspill: West Sedgemoor had to be delayed for reasons to do with illnesses until summer 2024.
More generally, FWAG SW began to help with organising Moor Association Chairs into a single convening body and building a website. A full mailing list of more than 160 members was compiled, and a first Moor Associations newsletter was sent out in January 2024.