The North East Kent Farm Cluster has secured approval for three pioneering Local Water Resource Option studies among the first in the South East. With abstraction licence reductions looming, farmers and consultants are identifying practical, collaborative solutions to safeguard irrigation, protect aquifers, and maintain productive, high-value crops and local jobs.

The Deer Impacts and Assessment Project investigates how increasing deer populations affect farmland. It focuses on measuring crop damage, improving monitoring methods and supporting coordinated management. The goal is to reduce economic losses while protecting habitats and promoting sustainable, landscape-scale solutions for farmers.

The Hazel Dormouse has long been a symbol of Britain’s woodlands and hedgerows, yet populations have plummeted by 50% since 2000. Loss of traditional woodland management, changes in farming, hedgerow removal and the added pressures of climate change have all contributed to this decline.

The North Wessex Downs National Landscape Partnership has secured a £1.5 million grant from Defra’s Species Survival Fund to deliver its ambitious Partnerships for Nature programme – a significant investment in nature recovery across this nationally important landscape.

For nearly a decade, FWAG South East has partnered with South East Water to trial practical ways of reducing agricultural impacts on water quality across the Boxalls and Woodgarston catchments in Hampshire.

For several years, FWAG South East has been working with landowners in the Selborne Landscape Partnership to support farmland bird recovery, with a particular focus on the nationally red-listed Lapwing.