23 February 2024

EXEC’S CORNER

A very warm welcome to ECT’s first newsletter of 2024, which heralds a change in publication frequency this year. With steadily increasing news and content across our previous quarterly newsletters, we have chosen to move to two-monthly issues to help spread content out a little more and to release it in a more timely manner.

The new year here at ECT started off with our second landscape-scale experiments/living labororatories workshop for landowner stakeholders which took place on 25 January. Held in partnership with the British Ecological Society (and five other organisations) at their premises in London, the invitation-only event again brought together most of the organisations who participated in our June 2023 workshop, plus a few additional bodies that had been unable to attend first time around. Significant further progress was made towards community building and sharing best practice in landscape-scale transformation, and a formal report of the proceeedings will be released by ECT in March.

One of the major outcomes of this second workshop has been the planning of a major two-day scientific symposium to help bring a wider community of landowners and practitioners together for formal talks, discussion and networking. Titled Resilient Landscapes for People, Nature and Climate and led by BES with ECT and other partners, this will be held on 24-25 June in Birmingham. Registration details are available further below, and I thoroughly commend this event to you all. It is especially important that more private landowners are engaged in this activity.

Ben Sykes

ARTICLE IN THE NICHE MAGAZINE

Under the ECT’s banner, we were delighted to have Rob Marrs (Liverpool University) write a piece for the December issue of The Niche titled Long-term experiments essential for our future. He reflects upon Jeff Duckett’s earlier article in the summer edition, and expands further upon the challenges facing LTEs.

UPCOMING EVENTS

For our next lunchtime webinar, we will have Jonathan Storkey (Rothamsted Research) speaking on the Park Grass long-term experiment: 168 Years and Still Delivering New Science on 15 March from 12:30pm. To request the joining link, please e-mail Danae Dodge.

In collaboration with the Royal Society of Biology London branch, we are hosting a site visit to Park Grass on Saturday 11 May 2024. Attendees will see the experiment plots, hear from Jonathan Storkey, Andy Gregory, and ECT trustee Keith Goulding, and have a chance to see the famous Rothamsted sample archives. For more information and how to book, see the RSB event page.

We are partnering with the British Ecological Society, the National Trust, WWF-UK, RSPB, Natural England, UKCEH, and the Woodland Trust to host the scientific symposium Resilient Landscapes for People and Nature in Birmingham on 24-25 June 2024. For more information and to register, see the BES website.

NEW PUBLICATION FROM ROTHAMSTED RESEARCH

A new publication in the European Journal of Agronomy, ‘Why do we make changes to the long-term experiments at Rothamsted?’ summarises how the long-term studies there have been adapted over the years to make sure they stay relevant, whilst maintaining their scientific integrity.

NEW FENCING AT NASH’S FIELD

In November 2023, Catalina Estrada (Imperial College London) received a maintenance grant from ECT to support the replacement of the decades-old and run-down wire fences that aim to keep rabbits and other small mammals out of the experiment’s large herbivores exclusion plots. Here she provides an update on the fencing replacement.

NOMINATIONS FOR THE 2024 NBN AWARDS FOR WILDLIFE RECORDING ARE OPEN

All too often the painstaking work that individual and groups of wildlife recorders undertake is not publicly recognised. These annual Awards celebrate the individuals, the newcomers and the groups of people or whole organisations that are making outstanding contributions to wildlife recording.

This year there are seven categories of awards, including two new ones: 

NBN Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 (new Award category)

NBN Verifier’s Award 2024 (new Award category)

NBN Award for Terrestrial Wildlife Recording 2024

NBN Award for Marine Wildlife Recording 2024

NBN Group Award 2024

NBN Newcomer Award 2024

NBN Young Person’s Award 2024 (open to individuals aged 11-20)

To nominate someone, visit: bit.ly/NBNawards24, select the relevant Award and answer three or four questions either online or via a MS Word document before 3 April 2024. Individuals and groups can nominate themselves.

The NBN Trust would like to thank their six sponsors of the Awards: Opticron, Habitat Aid, the Field Studies Council, William Collins, British Wildlife magazine and Natural History Book Service.

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