Strategic Recovery Areas

Conservation underpinned by scientific research

A National Recovery Strategy

In 2021, Vincent Wildlife Trust produced a Long-Term Strategic Recovery Plan for Pine Martens in Britain to help people from Scotland, England and Wales work together to conserve and restore pine martens across the three nations.

The Recovery Plan sets out the strategy for prioritising future pine marten reintroductions across Britain while protecting source populations in northern Scotland. Furthermore, it provides crucial recommendations for supporting and monitoring the natural recovery of pine martens following successful reintroductions, to ensure that the new founder populations thrive and expand.

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Martens on the Move across three nations

Martens on the Move will be working with communities, organisations, land owners and managers to help deliver conservation actions across two Strategic Recovery Areas (SRAs) in Britain. The project will be improving habitat, monitoring population expansion and engaging with local communities to prepare them for the return of a native carnivore. Each SRA includes Monitoring Hubs and Pine Marten Havens.

Across six Monitoring Hubs, 250 den boxes will improve habitat, providing pine martens with a safe place to rest, overwinter, give birth and raise their young. These den boxes will be carefully monitored using trail cameras to provide information on breeding success and population establishment.

Strategic Recovery Area 1

SRA1 was chosen to encompass the expanding populations of pine martens from previous successful reintroductions in Mid Wales and Gloucestershire. The SRA also covers areas of Shropshire where pine martens were confirmed to be present in 2015.

SRA 1 covers seven counties: Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Shropshire, Powys, Gloucestershire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.

SRA 1 includes four Monitoring Hubs

• Brechfa Monitoring Hub

• Mid-Wales Monitoring Hub

• Wye Valley Monitoring Hub

• Shropshire-Herefordshire Monitoring Hub

Strategic Recovery Area 2

SRA2 was chosen to encompass the slowly expanding pine marten population in Dumfries and Galloway that was founded from a small reintroduction into Galloway Forest in the early 1980s. This SRA also encompasses a later small release of rehabilitated pine martens in the Tweed Valley. In addition the SRA2 area crosses the border into the north of England, continuing the work of VWT's Back from the Brink pine marten project, and encompassing emerging populations in Cumbria.

SRA 2 covers four counties: Northumberland, Cumbria, Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.

SRA 2 includes two Monitoring Hubs

• Solway Monitoring Hub

• Tweed Valley Monitoring Hub