Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-02-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to preserve lapwing habitats.
Rory Stewart
The lapwing is listed under Section 41 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 as a species of principal importance in England and is consequently a priority for conservation action. Large aggregations of lapwings, along with other breeding and wintering birds, occur on protected sites containing lowland wet grassland, including over 28,000 hectares of Sites of Special Scientific Interest where lapwings are specifically recognised and benefit from targeted management of their habitats.
Lapwings are a widespread species, and the majority occur outside protected sites in a range of habitats including grassland and open moorland. Under our agri-environment schemes, such as Environmental Stewardship, a range of funded management options has been developed to provide suitable nesting and foraging conditions for lapwings, within and outside protected sites across their diverse habitats, including an option for creating bare-ground nesting plots on arable land. There are currently approximately 7,800 hectares of such plots in place under Environmental Stewardship. The new Countryside Stewardship scheme, launched in July 2015, will continue this important work by providing a Wild Pollinator and Farm Wildlife Package, which contains options to improve habitats and provide food for farmland birds such as lapwings. Countryside Stewardship also, for the first time, includes options for capital items supporting the construction of anti-predator fencing, which are likely to increase the survival of lapwing chicks.
