Location: Between Cambridge and Wicken, based roughly on the Swaffham Internal Drainage Board district but not limited to it.
The Wider Wicken Vision is an ambitious 100-year plan covering 5,300 ha between Wicken Fen and the edge of Cambridge. Our aim is to increase biodiversity, reduce carbon emissions, and increase access to nature.
Our vision is an expanded area of fenland that contains a network of wildlife-rich habitats. Working in partnership with stakeholders and landowners this landscape will buffer and protect Wicken Fen, one of the UK’s most biodiverse sites and one of the last remaining fragments of undrained fen in East Anglia. It will provide better access to nature in an area with limited greenspace and significant growth, benefitting local people’s health and wellbeing.
We are responding to three crises – the decline in nature, the climate crisis and unequal access for people to nature – and are aiming to do more, now, within the context of a productive agricultural landscape and area of significant development.
The Wider Wicken Fen Vison celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. The Vision was conceived in 1999 on the 100th anniversary of the National Trust’s first acquisition at Wicken Fen. Its aim was to expand the nature reserve to the edge of Cambridge, restoring fen and wetland habitats, and to provide a landscape-scale space for wildlife and people. Selected as one hydrological unit, the Vision was one of the first re-wilding projects in the UK, restoring natural processes through careful water management and extensive grazing by Konik ponies and highland cattle on newly acquired land. The Vision epitomises and influenced the development of the Lawson principles: bigger, better and more joined up.
More details www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/cambridgeshire/wicken-fen-national-nature-reserve/wicken-fen-vision