Darent Valley Landscape Recovery
The Darent Nature Partnership
The Darent Nature Partnership is a collaboration between twenty landowners across the Darent Valley who have come together with a shared ambition to protect, restore and enhance the river and its surrounding landscape. The landowners include local farmers, councils and Kent Wildlife Trust, who between them have contributed more than 1,800 hectares of land to long-term nature restoration. The Partnership aims to maximise the potential of the landscape for wildlife while providing services such as reduced flood risk and sustainable water supply and preserving and enhancing the area's rich heritage. By working together, Darent Nature Partnership will create a joined-up network of habitats that achieve bigger and better outcomes for wildlife and local communities.
Scope of works
ABEC have been involved in this project since the start, performing BNG assessments in 2023 and 2024, which involved into given land management advice, talks to landowners and supplying HMMPs.
In 2024, we started IBM monitoring within the Darent Valley this allowed us not just to assess the currently habitats but what animal species currently live and used the Darent. This involved using audiomoths to collect bat and bird calls, which tells you about the species from the different sounds the species make, slam traps for invertebrate studies and camera traps that allowed us to see what larger mammals used the Darent on a day-to-day base.
