Achieving more for nature's recovery


Over the course of 2024, Mills & Reeve alongside client Albanwise Environment, a nature recovery and land management company, teamed up on a nature conservation project.

Watch the video below to see what we got up to

Stoke Ferry Wetland is uniquely positioned in a strategically important river corridor, in the floodplain of the River Wissey, close to other existing wetlands and joined to its north by old unimproved species-rich grasslands. This land is difficult to cultivate as it often suffers with flooding or the peat soil degrades during times of drought. However, there’s still plenty of potential for restoring the peat soils, helping to draw atmospheric carbon back down into the ground.

In Spring 2024, representatives from Albanwise Environment and Mills & Reeve visited the site with environmental DNA (eDNA) specialists NatureMetrics to extract genetic traces of the land from soil samples to detect which species live in and around the area. 

The soil samples were amplified and compared to global reference libraries that contain the genomes of tens of thousands of species.

The data was used to connect the peatland soil and water samples with a list of species that live in the project area to find out where the land needs to improve.

The eDNA was also be compared to samples taken from existing wetland sites nearby, which gave clues to the sort of habitats and landscapes that could develop at Stoke Ferry in 20-30 years’ time.

 

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Stoke Ferry eDNA testing day photos