Important Freshwater Areas Important Freshwater Landscapes

Fen Futures: Recovering Rare Fen Insects – Species Recovery project

Species Project Soldierflies Project Southern Damselfly Project

This ambitious three-year Species Recovery project will safeguard some of England’s rarest wetland insects and restore precious alkaline fen habitats across Oxfordshire.

Blue and black damselfly resting on a stem.

With our partners the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), we will restore and reconnect Oxfordshire’s internationally important fens while pioneering new DNA techniques to understand and protect threatened species.

Image: Southern Damselfly (Coenagrion mercuriale) (c) Alan Leung.

Reversing the decline in freshwater biodiversity

BBOWT and Freshwater Habitats Trust are working together to restore and enhance fen habitats, create new breeding areas, undertake specialist surveys, and deepen scientific understanding of these rare insects and the habitats they depend on.

The project forms part of our strategy to build the Freshwater Network. Together with our partners, we’re creating a wilder, wetter, cleaner, more connected landscape so populations of rare and threatened species can recover.

Saving four threatened species

The project focuses on eleven fen sites centred on the internationally important Cothill Fen Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and surrounding groundwater-fed wetlands near Oxford.

Together, these sites support nationally significant populations of four threatened species: the Southern Damselfly (Coenagrion mercuriale), Orange-horned Green Colonel (Odontomyia angulata), Clubbed General (Stratiomys chamaeleon), and Dark-winged Soldier (Oxycera analis).

A key feature of the project is the use of innovative environmental DNA techniques to investigate whether DNA collected from soldierfly larvae and larval habitat surveys can provide a reliable new method for detecting these elusive species and understanding their habitat requirements. This research could have wider implications for monitoring rare wetland invertebrates elsewhere in the UK.

- Clubbed General soldierfly (Stratiomys chamaeleon). (c) Judy Webb

Soldierflies
Stratiomyidae

Find out more
Blue and black damselfly resting on a stem.

Southern Damselfly
Coenagrion mercuriale

Find out more

Restoring freshwater habitats

The project will deliver habitat improvements across 11 sites, including:

  • Creation of new shallow pools.
  • Restoration and reopening of fen runnels and water channels.
  • Removal of scrub, trees and invasive vegetation to restore open fen conditions.
  • Creation of glades and transitional habitats to improve connectivity between populations.
  • Long-term monitoring of rare species populations and habitat quality.
Fen habitat, with wet ground and pools and tussocky vegetation. Trees and a blue sky in the background.

- Soldierfly breeding pool, Parsonage Moor Fen

As well as practical conservation work, the partnership will engage local landowners, farmers, volunteers and communities through site visits, talks and events designed to raise awareness of the importance of Oxfordshire’s alkaline fens and the groundwater systems that sustain them.

Securing the future of Oxfordshire’s alkaline fens

This project builds on our long-term commitment to restoring Oxfordshire’s alkaline fens. Over many years, we’ve worked with a community of Oxfordshire-based experts, volunteers, land managers and landowners to protect the county’s internationally important alkaline fen habitat for the future.

Alkaline fen has a distinctive vegetation with a short, open structure made up of low-growing grasses, rushes and sedges, and a diversity of wetland wildflowers, growing over mats of colourful mosses. Alkaline fen supports supports some of the richest plant and animal communities in the country, including many rare and threatened species.

Find out about The Oxfordshire Fens Project
Aeriel view of field with electricity pylon ad people working.

- Hinksey Heights, Oxfordshire. Photo: Tim Bearder.

Our other Species Recovery projects

The Species Recovery programme is helping us achieve our vision of building the Freshwater Network. One of the key aims of the Freshwater Network is to increase populations of rare and threatened freshwater species.

Find out more about we’re saving threatened freshwater species in three other Species Recovery projects.

Spiky aquatic plant with small white and yellow flowers emerging from water. Leaves float on the surface.
Recovering England's Rarest Freshwater Plants

We’re restoring some of England’s rarest freshwater plants and the habitats they depend on.

Find out more
Aerial view of two Glutinous Snails (Myxas glutinosa).
Glutinous Snail

Led by BIAZA, this project will develop an integrated conservation programme for this vanishingly rare freshwater snail.

Tadpole Shrimp

This Natural England-led project will bring partners together to save this ancient crustacean from extinction.