Why chalk grasslands are so important - part two

By Phil Belden, campaigner for the South Downs

The South Downs is stunning, befitting its National Park status. The soft, rolling landscape is easy on the eye, but a more discerning study reveals more. Underfoot, chalk, our vital aquifer, drinking water supply to over a million people. Land use over this underground reservoir affects the quality of our water, it also determines the fate of our wildlife.

Development has eaten away at the Downs, but with planning laws, then protective designations, this has dramatically slowed. There are, however, damaging exceptions, such as major road schemes, and incremental urban creep is an insidious threat.

More significantly, agricultural policy has relentlessly intensified production, to unsustainable levels, from post-war “dig-for-victory” food demands, to EU subsidies from the 1970s onwards, with no consideration of the negative consequences, most dramatically to our habitats.

The climate crisis, with its global awareness campaign has reset thinking. Wild Isles is the latest wake-up call and there are signs of hope. Post-EU agri-environment funding coming on stream next year, complemented by local National Park-launched Nature Recovery and downland-owning councils with new plans. We need to push them to implement these fully.

Wild Isles (3^rd episode) showed "why our wildlife needs rich wild grasslands”. It’s compelling viewing. Government commissioned a report a few years ago, which set the goal for bigger, better and joined up habitats – this we must strive for, to fight for our wildlife and our wellbeing, contact with nature so important in our modern, pressurised lives.

How can we help chalk grassland?

Live in hope, but not as a passive bystander. Membership of Sussex Wildlife Trust is a good start, writing to your MP or local councillor (optimal time now – hitting your candidates ahead of the May elections), wildlife gardening, getting practically involved in conservation, … so many ways to help nature.

Be positive – we will recover our grasslands, where you can find “on our chalk hills is one of the rarest habitats on Earth, chalk streams … only about 200 in the World and 85% of them flow through southern England”, but that’s another story (see Wild Isles, episode one).