Until recently local people in the Isle of Axholme and Hatfield Chase partnership area had strong links to the landscape. Many of these links are now broken and important parts of this drained landscape could to be lost. 

The partnership area includes the UK’s largest lowlands raised peat bog complex. Rare birds, including breeding cranes and nightjars, thrive on the moors but the bogs are at risk of drying out and the medieval landscape of the Isle of Axholme and Trent Bank is being lost.

Running alongside the conservation work the scheme will help reconnect local people with the area’s wildlife, farming and industrial heritage by encouraging people to go into the landscape more often through volunteering opportunities for land management, traditional ploughing, archeology and surveying.

Ian Goldthorpe, North Lincolnshire Council, said: “The project offers opportunities for people to come together around shared objects, to work on the land with their hands and with their minds, to make a real difference to the landscape they inhabit and to enjoy themselves in doing this.”