Essex Wildlife Trust's Aubrey Buxton Nature Reserve
Bishop's Stortford, UK
The stunning Aubrey Buxton Nature reserve is in desperate need of land clearance to lay a new accessible lakeside path. Much loved and used by its local community, the reserve is free to visit year-round, at all times. Walkers, nature lovers and families can explore woodland, beautiful wildflower meadows and the reserve's 200-year-old ponds, which are home to dragonflies, damselflies and the rare Great Crested Newt (a European protected species). Visitor numbers are growing rapidly due to an increasing local population and the beauty of the site, so the existing basic paths are becoming very worn and muddy and in wet weather they are completely inaccessible. As visitors and dogs try to get round the mud and tree roots, important habitats are being damaged due to littering and trampling of the undergrowth and pond banks. Complete land clearance and litter picking needs to take place first before the much-needed hardened surface with boardwalk can be re-laid. The project will make the reserve much more accessible to visitors including pushchair and wheelchair users for years to come and open it up to site-based conservation projects such as volunteer work parties. Sections of the path will be re-routed too, taking visitors away from areas where there is greatest risk of further habitat damage to protect the species that are thriving on the reserve.
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