The project offers advice and information on local fruit varieties, carries out research and survey work and supplies training in orchard management skills - to individuals, voluntary and statutory bodies.
The project will also supply local varieties of fruit trees, starting with a limited number of Norfolk varieties available this autumn. Norfolk and Hertfordshire have had dedicated orchard projects running for several years, and now there is considerable interest from other counties in the region.
Until recently, every county had its own important orchard-based economy, helping to support the livelihoods of whole communities. More than 250 different varieties of apples, pears, plums, and cherries were grown in East Anglia's 'traditional-style' orchards.
Today the surviving examples of these traditional fruit orchards are well worth conserving wherever possible, not just because they often contain rare local fruits and add visual interest to the landscape, but because recent research by the Central Science Laboratory has shown that their biodiversity value is more than double that of modern orchards and more akin to that of traditional wood pasture - which in effect is what sort of habitat they are.
The group is encouraging the inclusion of traditional orchards in the local Biodiversity Action Plans of the region's county councils.
In 2001 Cambridgeshire county council placed 22 acres of traditional fenland orchard, located on one of their small-holdings at Wisbech St. Mary, into a ten year countryside stewardship agreement. The site has now been fenced so that sheep can graze off decades of bramble scrub and a series of public footpaths have been established. Twenty traditional fenland apple varieties have been identified so far and the ecology of the site - everything from lichens to little owls - is proving particularly good as some of the 2700 surviving trees are at least a century old.
Over the border in Norfolk, where old orchards are less common, the county council's countryside team has helped conserve the county's traditional orchard fruit varieties by grant aiding the creation of new Norfolk fruit orchards through its 'Woodland Grants' scheme. This has resulted in the completion of numerous planting schemes by individuals, community groups and schools, which may not have otherwise occurred.
These are just two local examples of how both wildlife and people can benefit from the conservation of old orchards and the planting of new ones.
