Conservation and Green Awareness

Roger and Jackie have been interested in managing the land in the best possible interests of livestock and wildlife since leaving agricultural college in the 80’s and when they moved to Little Comfort in 2000 they were able to enter into a countryside stewardship scheme which in combination with their organic farming status has enabled them to do a great deal of conservation work.

“Our Key species is the Greater Horse Shoe Bat who number approx 3000 in Britain and we have a population of approx 300 living in the valleys of the River Caen and its tributaries of which Little Comfort is one. A key species is the animal in which there is the greatest interest or concern and your management plan is drawn up to best meet their needs. However the needs of your key species always have the most beneficial affect on a great number of other species in the area in which you are working.

The Greater horseshoe bats need good thick boundaries over 3meters high in order that they can use their echolocation to find their way around and hunt their prey. Therefore the more hedgerows the better so we have replaced 7 ancient hedgerows and fenced and managed the remaining hedges to help them thicken up and get rid of any gaps. Once they can move around they need something to eat and the Greater Horse shoe bats idea of a great dinner is a dung beetle!!! These they catch on the wing from dusk onwards, so to make sure that the bats – particularly the youngsters when they first leave the roost – have plenty to eat, we need lots of dung and really lots of cattle dung as that is better than sheep or pigs dung! So we graze our traditional herd of North Devon Cattle in the water meadows and make sure that they have not been wormed with any ivimectin medication, which renders the dung sterile and unusable by the different generations of dung beetles. We are not the only farm in the area working to create a better habitat for the bats and with the combination of us all the Trust for English Nature were able to record that already the bat population has gone up by over 10%.

We have also chosen to manage the meadows in such a way as to favour the wildflowers and were delighted to record a second species of Orchid in the valley this year. Of course all these new hedges have helped the bird population and the RSPB survey we have done every year is showing a steady rise in both the number and species of birds in the valley, the skylark returned this year and a pair of Hobbies have made their home in the area. We are up to 45 species of birds this year so far. As you can probably tell we are very keen indeed on our conservation work!! Rather than go on any more come and find out for your self we offer a farm walk with the animal feeding on Saturday and then you are most welcome to explore the valley at any time during your stay.”

Green Awareness Business Scheme.
This scheme of which we are GOLD winners aims to look at all aspects of your business and to see in what ways you can minimise your adverse reactions on the environment and in what ways you can improve the environment both locally and beyond. There are 120 measures of sustainability, which we had to look at and try and implement as many as possible.
These include:
Compliance with environmental legislation
A commitment to continuous improvement in environmental performance
Management techniques to include staff training and record keeping
Communication of green policy and environmental actions to customers
Energy efficiency, heating appliances, insulation etc
Water efficiency including good maintenance, low consumption appliances, eco cleaners
Purchasing of environmentally friendly goods, use and promotion of local food and drink
Waste minimisation, encouraging the Eliminate reduces, reuses and recycles.
Transport – minimise use where possible and think of car free days
Wildlife on site; measures for increasing biodiversity.

For More information on this scheme please do look on www.green-business.co.uk