A project aimed at developing a more ecologically sustainable approach to Dumfries and Galloway‘s hill farming – and help conserve the endangered northern brown argus butterfly – will soon begin.
The Species-Rich Grassland project, part of the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal Natural Capital Scotland programme, has had funding approval from the Borderlands Partnership Board.
National charity Butterfly Conservation will trial a host of experimental techniques at farms, using the butterfly as a flagship for the protection and creation of flower-rich grassland in the region’s hills.
The delicate orange-and-brown butterfly used to be much more widespread, but its UK distribution plummeted 56 per cent between 1990 and 2018. This is largely because the northern brown argus caterpillars only eat one plant – the common rock rose – and this is usually only found in species-rich grassland of which some 90 per cent has been lost in the UK in the past century.
The programme is funded by Scottish Government and UK Government and is part of the wider £350 million Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal. The Borderlands Partnership is made up of Dumfries and Galloway Council, Cumberland Council, Northumberland County Council, Scottish Borders Council, and Westmorland and Furness Council.