The Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Project has won the Bowland Award at the at this years National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty Conference.
The Bowland Award is given annually to the "best project, best practice or outstanding contribution to the wellbeing of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty" and this year the Board called for nominations for projects that demonstrate landscape scale conservation through partnership working.
The Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Project was established in early 2004, and brings together a partnership of organisations that are actively working together to conserve and enhance the nationally important chalk stream resource within Lincolnshire. The partnership organisations include; the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Wild Trout Trust, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and Anglian Water.
There are 46 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and between them they cover 18% of England and Wales, many of these are important habitats under the government Biodiversity Action Plan.
Mike Drew, Biodiversity Action Plan Scientist for Anglian Water, said: "In partnership with other bodies the project has restored 10km of chalk streams, meaning that around 40km of the Lincolnshire Chalk Streams are now defined as High Level Stewardship, helping to secure important habitats for trout and plants like water crowfoot.
"For a project like this to be recognised nationally is fantastic news for all involved and is testament to the hard work the project team has put in over the past few years.
“We will be continuing to work alongside the Lincolnshire Chalk Stream Project to further promote habitat protection and enhance water quality in these streams in the coming years.”