Back on Our Map is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and led by the University of Cumbria and Morecambe Bay Partnership. BOOM re-engages communities in south Cumbria with nature, and reintroducing and reinforcing 10 locally threatened or extinct native species. Over the past 4 years BOOM has led the way in harnessing community efforts and driving species restoration whilst also giving back to that same community – this is our story.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:18 Our main aim for BOOM is to work with rare or threatened species and reintroduce or reinforce them into areas where they once were and where they've now been lost.
00:28 BOOM came about really in response to the nature crisis that we were all facing and there were a small number of individuals that came together within Cumbria and came up with this concept of bringing back species with people at its heart.
00:46 A big part of our role was recruiting a team of volunteers. They've been absolutely key to supporting our species officers in a lot of the species reintroduction work.
00:55 We've been lucky to be joined by over 150 volunteers that have helped us with everything from feeding dormouse grapes to planting trees, helping count orchids and together they have contributed over 1,300 days of full-time work to our project.
01:11 So we really couldn't have done the work without them.
01:13 It's been really important to us to engage with people who don't often have a chance to access our outdoor places. So there's a key link between spending time outdoors in nature and improving our mental health and wellbeing.
01:25 So we've worked a lot with Haverigg Prison, Mind and Furness, the mental health support charity in Barrow and Beaumont College which is for young people with learning disabilities.
01:36 So we've been working with the prison throughout the whole of the Boom Project. They're one of the key communities that we've been working with.
01:43 We've worked with about a group of 20 prisoners and we have led them through both the John Muir Award and Level 1 horticulture.
01:52 So we've been teaching them a lot about different boom species but one of the species we have focused on is aspen.
01:58 Up to 4,000 of these aspen trees have now been planted through the Boom Project and the prisoners at HMP Haverigg have had a really important part to play in it.
02:09 It's quite unusual in the fact that it needs both a male and female aspen tree close by to be able to pollinate.
02:15 Unfortunately there's now not enough male and female trees to be able to start and continue new aspen growing around Cumbria.
02:23 So the prisoners have worked with us for over the past two years and supported us to both grow the species here at the prison and follow that whole process through to then planting them out around Cumbria.
02:35 They've been absolutely invaluable to the day to day watering and looking after of the trees here on the site as well as giving us the manpower to then be able to go out and plant those species across a wide area of Cumbria.
02:48 Everything that Jo and her team have done here has absolutely impacted all of the men who have been involved.
02:53 So we had visitors from outside, experts in their field, visiting artists who've come in and trekked them like normal human beings which is absolutely invaluable to somebody who we are trying to go back outside and live a fruitful life.
03:09 When we were doing the art with the men we were really keen to say there aren't any mistakes. A lot of them hadn't picked up pens and pencils since they've been at school and definitely a lot of them hadn't done any artwork.
03:22 And when they actually came to the gallery, we did a trip, they came and actually saw their art up on the walls and realised that five, six hundred other people had come to see their artwork as well.
03:32 That was a huge confidence boost for them and they've talked about it every other session since.
03:36 They've got an understanding of how to grow and nurture things along and why looking after things are so important which helps with their understanding of basically how to live decent lives.
03:51 And if we can rehabilitate then you're going to prevent more victims because you've changed their lives.
03:59 Absolutely massive for the mental health and wellbeing of the guys that we work with. Having that positive mental health effect can only help towards a positive rehabilitation.
04:13 Falshire Moss is a lowland raised bog which is owned and managed by Cumbria Wildlife Trust. It's about 350 hectares in size and they've basically re-wetted it so that we've got all these bog pools that you can see me squelching in here.
04:30 It's a really, really important habitat because it's a peatland habitat. Peatlands in the world store more carbon than all the woodlands in the world and it's home to lots and lots of fabulous species.
04:41 Obviously the Great Sun Dew and Oblong Leaf Sun Dew because of boom.
04:47 These species are particularly important because they are actually carnivorous so they are the UK's answer to the Venus fly trap.
04:56 Their role is they catch flies on their leaves and they will digest the flies and this will add nutrients to the bog that can then be used by the plants themselves but also the other plants around them.
05:11 In here we've got 20 Oblong Leaf Sun Dews and basically it's just a thin layer of peat and we've just planted the Sun Dews on it and the volunteers have been then taking these home and they've just looked after them over winter.
05:28 So they've been able to plant them on, look after them over winter and then we're going to plant them out with the volunteers as well.
05:36 We've got a Bog in the Box WhatsApp group and seeing people text and be like 'oh look, mine's caught a fly' and 'oh I think mine's about to come into flower' and stuff.
05:44 That people get more engaged and it's been a really accessible way to get people interested in bogs because as you can see it's not the easiest habitat to walk across and it is actually a really sensitive habitat as well.
06:00 So we've been working with the Small Blue Butterfly, it's the nation's smallest butterfly about the size of a five pence piece and it's quite rare.
06:09 There's a really great population of them on the Barrow Slag Banks so we're really fortunate to have a really great enthusiastic group of volunteers local to Barrow to help us with mark and recapture studies.
06:22 So we're working to create a meta-population of the Small Blue meaning that this will be lots of little populations all interconnected through food source and through habitat.
06:35 For the past three years we've been working to do habitat improvements at a site called Hod Barrow which is run by the RSPB.
06:42 For this we've had to plant Kidney Vetch which is the one and only food plant for the Small Blue Caterpillar.
06:49 This year we actually translocated 64 Small Blue Butterflies to Hod Barrow.
06:55 Not only have they spread across the site but we're seeing them breeding already and we've seen eggs being laid on Kidney Vetch and we've seen caterpillars and we've actually seen new adult butterflies which was really, really unprecedented because we weren't expecting to see any second generation until next year.
07:16 The Ducal Burgundy Butterfly was another species that we worked on and it's declined precipitously since 1970 and is now restricted to chalk grassland and woodland rides at just a few locations around Morecambe Bay and in the Ruslan Valley.
07:32 What we were hoping to do was captive breed these butterflies to produce a population to create new colonies in the wider landscape.
07:44 This was successful but not without challenge because butterflies are real sort of boom and bust insects.
07:55 They have good years and they have bad years.
07:57 During the term of the boom project there simply weren't enough butterflies to collect and captive breed to create those satellite colonies.
08:07 But that said we worked with volunteers and very closely with butterfly conservation and learned a great deal in terms of methods and best practice when it comes to captive breeding of butterflies.
08:21 My friend and colleague Ellie Kent has done remarkable work with her volunteers and in conjunction with the People's Trust for Endangered Species to recover Hazel Dormice.
08:34 We've actually seen a 50% decline in the Hazel Dormouse population across Britain since the 1970s when they used to be abundant all the way up to the Scottish border.
08:45 We wanted to reintroduce the Hazel Dormouse into these habitats that has abundant food, that has this perfect three-dimensional habitat that they love.
08:54 Since 2021 we've done two Hazel Dormouse reintroductions into Arnside and Silverdale AUMB.
09:02 These dormice are actually captive bred. They're then brought up to be put into soft release cages.
09:08 We have a really great group of 24 volunteers who came and fed them every day in their cages and then on the 10th day we released them into the wild.
09:16 We've seen lots of breeding take place and them spreading through the landscape.
09:22 We now have about eight volunteers that actually have a dormouse handling licence and many more that actually want to get one which is a really great legacy for us.
09:31 The Maidenhair Fern is a rare plant that grows in crevices on limestone bluffs and rocks.
09:43 It's very rare in South Cumbria. We had great difficulty accessing the sites where it still occurs like Meathop Sea Wall which we could only access after Covid.
09:55 It grows very slowly. This is a perfect example of where the term of the BOOM project is simply not long enough and it will require more work longer term.
10:07 But actually it's been propagated successfully and returned to at least two or three locations through the project.
10:14 It's a really special site for BOOM because we have quite a lot of species that we work on here.
10:21 Mainly the Spike Speedwell, Goldilocks Aster and the Green-winged Orchid.
10:26 These three species are important because they're really rare in Cumbria.
10:31 In fact, the Goldilocks Aster was extinct in Cumbria before we planted it back out on Humphrey Head just at the top here.
10:37 We actually have been using the Spike Speedwell here as a donor source for other sites in Cumbria.
10:44 So the Spike Speedwell seed from here is fantastic because it grows really, really big and it grows really fast compared to other sites that Spike Speedwell exists in Cumbria.
10:54 They're really, really good inhabitants of limestone grasslands and cliff edges.
11:02 We've learnt so much and it's given the volunteers an opportunity to learn new skills.
11:07 It's been tricky because we've had a lot of complications such as COVID.
11:15 It's been a journey but we're finally getting there and we have started planting out Spike Speedwell in areas in the AOMB, so in Jack Scout and Arnside and Silverdale.
11:25 So everyone loves an orchid and the Green-winged Orchid is no exception.
11:32 It's absolutely spectacular and there are still a few colonies of Green-winged Orchids in the Arnside and Silverdale AOMB and one or two other spots around Cumbria.
11:43 But it's rare and it needed help.
11:46 And the wonderful thing about this element of the BOOM project was the collaboration with cutting-edge scientists and researchers at Kew Gardens.
11:55 Orchids require particular mycorrhizal fungi to germinate and to thrive.
12:01 Kew Gardens did the research to identify the particular fungi that benefited the propagation of Green-winged Orchids and presented us with a thousand little tiny plants.
12:14 Those plants have been planted out into the landscape with mixed results and there has been a lot of learning for the BOOM project officers as a result.
12:25 But fundamentally we now have the skills and the know-how to actually propagate those plants ourselves.
12:34 The story of the Pine Martin is surely one of resilience in the face of persecution.
12:41 But hunting records document the steady decline of the species to a low point at the end of the 19th century.
12:48 The last confirmed record of a Pine Martin in Cumbria was from Grisedale Forest in 2010.
12:55 So why are we studying the feasibility of reintroducing this species?
12:59 Well, a Cumbrian population could help to link those in southern Scotland with the reintroduced populations in Wales and the Forest of Deane.
13:08 Recent evidence suggests that where Pine Martins exist with red and grey squirrels, they reduce non-native grey squirrel numbers and allow the reds to thrive.
13:19 Over the last year, based on some really promising results from all of the fieldwork and the community engagement and the mapping and modelling,
13:29 we decided to progress from the feasibility element to re-establish a small viable population in Cumbria.
13:40 So the future of the Pine Martin project in South Cumbria is uncertain.
13:45 We applied for a licence in May this year to the statutory authorities north of the border and we're unsure at this point whether that will be granted or not.
13:57 But I have to say we're very proud of the work that's been done, the feasibility work and the implementation work with our partners over the last three or four years.
14:05 Perhaps what I'm most proud about are the bridges that we've built with farmers and landowners and gamekeepers
14:13 who traditionally are not well thought of by the conservation sector, but actually who've supported this project more than most.
14:22 [Music]
14:29 So it's not just nature that's benefited. The communities we've worked with have really gained so much from this whole process
14:37 in terms of making friends, getting jobs, improving the wellbeing, having I suppose a focus to do something a bit different with their lives.
14:47 Often students come out of the university and they have the academic knowledge but they don't have the practical applied experience.
14:54 Students have been involved in learning about species, having practical tasks, working with communities and that's led to those students to actual real jobs.
15:08 So we've had 100% success which is amazing.
15:11 I'd just like to thank all the partners and the volunteers and the landowners and everybody who's worked with us.
15:17 It's actually made it happen. We couldn't have done it without them.
15:21 So as BOOM finishes we have great pride in what we're going to leave behind.
15:26 These creatures and plants that we've brought back that will continue to thrive into the future and that the partnership will continue to support that.
15:35 And that legacy for us we see is a job well done.
15:41 [Music]