Farmland habitats

Three-quarters of the land in Cornwall is farmland. Responsible farming practices provide rich habitats. Look twice at unsprayed field margins: arable weeds or beautiful wild flowers? The Cornish hedge, mini-mountains of soil and rock, shady, sunny, dry, moist, provides a home for hundreds of plants and animals. Indeed some field hedges in Penwith, west Cornwall, are thought to be amongst the oldest in the world, dating to the early Neolithic, 4,000 B.C.

Atlantic woodland

The south-west coast Atlantic woodlands are among the least disturbed of our semi-natural habitats. They contain native oak, willow, ash and hazel, pruned by the wind, dwarfed by the poor soil, and clothed in ferns, mosses and lichens thanks to the clean air. These temperate rainforests have a rich diversity, but the species in them are often small and green and easily overlooked. English Nature are working to recreate 500 to 1000 hectares of woodland landscape in the clay area, restoring a habitat that would always have been there until the last 100 years or so.

Information kindly provided by The Eden Project. Text copyright the Eden Project 2003