A PROJECT that has restored over nine miles of streams in an internationally-important New Forest wetland habitat has won an award.

Over the last nine years, natural meanders and bends have been “painstakingly” returned to artificially straightened streams, protecting them from further erosion.

The New Forest Wetlands scheme was chosen from a wide range of river restoration projects across the UK to receive the UK River Prize 2019.

The ten-year Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) scheme was set up as a partnership between the Verderers of the New Forest, Forestry England, and the New Forest National Park Authority. The New Forest HLS agreement is worth £19 million, with a minimum of £750,000 available for wetland restoration per year.

Nick Wardlaw, HLS manager at Forestry England, said: “The New Forest is an internationally important wetland and home to 75 per cent of the remaining valley mires, or boggy areas, in north-western Europe.

“Over the last nine years this project has been painstakingly restoring wetlands across the New Forest, changing artificially straightened streams to return their natural meanders and bends, and protecting them from further erosion.

“A project of this scale and complexity requires many different groups to work together and I would like to thank all of the organisations who help to look after the News Forest and the local community for their support and commitment. It is a great privilege for all involved to have played a part in ensuring these vital landscapes continue to thrive for many generations to come.”

Many streams in the area are failing current standards for inputs of sediment and phosphate and poor fish habitat, and their ecology suffers from being heavily modified through centuries of use. The New Forest Wetlands project provides advice on soil and land use management in order to reduce sediment run-off to the rivers and improve infiltration and hydrological processes to reduce flooding and increase drought resilience.

Commenting on the winners’ achievement, Martin Janes, managing director of The River Restoration Centre, said: “It was impossible to ignore the huge amount of work that this partnership has undertaken over the past nine years, leading to the improvement and protection of rare wetland habitat.

“It was great to see the wide focus on wetlands, incorporating the stream network, their floodplains and the internationally important mires from which they spring. The restoration is contributing to slowing the flow of water by storing it for longer to reduce flood peaks as well as helping manage drought periods.

“Visually, the finished work demonstrates incredible attention to detail, often restoring the stream component to its old course and floodplain with remarkably few visible scars to the landscape, as if it had been there for centuries.”

The UK River Prize is hosted and administered by the River Restoration Centre, partnered by Arup, South East Water, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Natural Resources Wales.