THE Church Commissioners and the non-profit organisation Butterfly Conservation have agreed on a fresh lease at Magdalen Hill Down, a nature reserve near Winchester, allowing them to proceed to guard butterflies.
The agreement has brought two previous leases together, and enables the charity to take care of its 30 years of conservation work on the 46-hectare site.
Butterfly Conservation has preserved the steep chalk hillside, which is home to greater than 30 butterfly species, including the biggest population of Brown Argus butterflies in Hampshire.
Through scrub clearance and grazing management, Butterfly Conservation has also successfully reversed a decline in the world’s Adonis Blue butterflies.
“Thank goodness! There’s only a lot change I can address”
The Commissioners’ asset manager, Cameron McKillop, said: “For greater than three many years, the Church Commissioners for England has been proud to support Butterfly Conservation’s efforts to spice up butterfly species in England’s newest national park. We are all the time on the lookout for parts of our land that could be harnessed to advertise nature recovery, and this agreement means this local success story will proceed.”
Work at Magdalen Hill Down, within the South Downs National Park, is supported by a grant-funded Higher Level Countryside Stewardship Scheme and by Hampshire County Council.
“Restoration work on one area of the location has transformed it from intensive arable production to flower-rich grassland,” the senior land-use officer at Butterfly Conservation, Julian Bendle, said, “and it’s now certainly one of the highest ten sites within the county for a lot of butterfly species.”
The Commissioners say that they’re looking for to make use of appropriate land of their farmland portfolio to advertise nature and biodiversity improvements across England.
