A 55-acre web site near Aberdeen is to grow to be one of many largest biodiversity initiatives on a college campus in Scotland.
Robert Gordon College (RGU) plans to revive Waterside Farm into an space of biodiversity, enhancing its already excessive carbon-holding capability, and offering a habitat for a spread of threatened species.
RGU is working alongside environmental consultancy agency The Habitat Individuals to carry the land again to its extra pure state. The SRM Basis has additionally donated £100,000 to help the imaginative and prescient.
Veronica Strachan, College Secretary, and Vice-Principal Company Companies stated: “We’re delighted to be working intently alongside The Habitat Individuals on this thrilling biodiversity venture, which actually is a implausible alternative to create a web site the place every kind of animals and plants can prosper within the coming years.
“As custodians of this distinctive web site, it’s of important significance that we’re proactive and be certain that the realm can thrive and encourage the following era. Moreover, I wish to thank the SRM Basis for his or her donation which may solely assist us transfer ahead.”
David Hunter, Chief Government Officer of The Habitat Individuals, stated: “There are some nice property at Waterside Farm already, by way of the plants and by way of the chicken life. We’ve bought a number of nationally endangered chicken species which can be breeding right here, however there’s an terrible lot extra we will do.
“We’ve discovered that this web site was a part of the river, so we’re going to be establishing the wetlands and bringing again what this web site might have used to seem like 250 years in the past, which could be very thrilling.
“They key consequence for Waterside Farm shall be when all method of species of vegetation and animals make it their house and start to thrive. This can be a long-term venture, and it’s the future generations who will profit probably the most from the efforts to make this patch of land a paradise for biodiversity.”
Francesco Mazzagatti, Chief Government Officer of the SRM Basis, stated: “We’re proud to help RGU’s Waterside Farm venture, which units the tone for the sorts of revolutionary undertakings on the coronary heart of the concept for the SRM Basis.
“RGU’s imaginative and prescient for the Waterside Farm – to revive the habitat to its authentic type and convey again the native species and keep it reasonably than attempt to enhance it via strategies that aren’t indigenous to the location – are aligned with the SRM Basis’s total strategy to biodiversity.
“Being the primary venture for our basis, we intend to be intently concerned so as to doc the measurable advantages of restoring a biodiversity web site so we will showcase the immense significance of local weather philanthropy within the transition to a clear power economic system.”
The restoration of the location contains reintroducing wetlands by including reedbeds in particular areas of Waterside Farm in addition to having managed flooding in place to permit the reedbeds to mature.
The Habitat Individuals discovered two most important invasive plant species on the web site – Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed. The previous might be eliminated just by pulling it out of the bottom whereas the latter requires specialist injection remedy.
Additional early groundwork contains the set up of chicken bins which has confirmed to achieve success with a pair of owls nesting at an undisclosed location at Waterside Farm.
The College bought Waterside Farm, which is simply off the South Deeside Street, in 2006. The realm has a protracted historical past with army maps exhibiting that within the 1700s the River Dee was a two-stream waterway, whereas maps produced within the nineteenth Century present the river was diverted to a single channel because of agricultural exercise on the location.
In October 2024, RGU held a listening occasion for native stakeholders to stipulate the proposals and assist strengthen hyperlinks between the College and the communities round Waterside Farm. These in attendance overwhelmingly help Waterside Farm as a pure house and the restoration proposals.
There shall be alternatives for individuals to volunteer on the web site as plans develop, with occasions because of happen on Thursday 12 December and Thursday 19 December. Anybody who needs to register an curiosity can electronic mail: WatersideFarm@rgu.ac.uk
Discover out extra on the RGU web site: https://www.rgu.ac.uk/waterside-farm
