South Downs National Park launches £100m 'renature' campaign

A national park is aiming to launch a "nature recovery" scheme in an area twice the size of Southampton.

A quarter of South Downs National Park is made up of woods, heaths, ponds and nature reserves, where animals and plants thrive.

It wants to add another 13,000 hectares (31,000 acres), and has launched a £100m funding drive to back the plans.

Park ecologist Andrew Lee said: "The biodiversity crisis is real and it's happening before our very eyes."

The South Downs National Park, which stretches from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex, is the newest of the UK's national parks, having come into being in March 2010.

'Nature recovery', or 'renaturing', involves reversing "decades of human impact on biodiversity, nature and natural eco-systems", a statement from the national park said.

Mr Lee, who heads the park's countryside policy and management, said: "The good news is it's not too late to turn the tide of wildlife loss.

"Nature needs us now and we also need nature, perhaps now more than ever before in this post-pandemic world where green spaces have taken on a new level of importance."

The national park will roll out the project with the help of local farmers, land managers, communities and local authorities, as well as other partners and environmental charities.

Mr Lee said: "It will include everything from hedgerow restoration, to planting thousands of trees, to the restoration of individual village ponds, to planting new wildflower corridors."

The charity hopes to raise the funds over the next 10 years through donations, grants, public funds and private finance.

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].