There’s nothing like the English countryside. Getting out and about the beautiful, peaceful and serene greenery is unmatched – and something that is synonymous with the countryside is the hedgerows. But, did you known England’s hedgerows would stretch ten times around the Earth if lined up end to end.
According to a new map using a laser scanner, English hedgerows, if lines up end to end, would wrap around the Earth ten times. It was revealed that there is a total of 390km of hedges in England, measuring between one and six metres in height.
Hedgegrows are more than just pretty, they are an important part of rural countryside and have been since the Bronze age, marking boundaries and keeping in cattle as well as containing hundreds of wild plants.
It’s the South West has the greatest share with 24% of England’s hedges. Counties Cornwall, Somerset and Derbyshire are home to the most. Excluding London, the northeast has the lowest share at 4% and the lowest density per county were found in Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.
The new map is the most comprehensive to date and ecologists hope the data will lead to better protection for the lines of trees and shrubs that provide food and shelter for wildlife as well as storing large amounts of carbon. They also provide safe movement for endangered species, like dormice and the rare brown hairstreak butterflies.
Dr Richard Broughton of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, led the project and said to the BBC: “We’ve probably got more hedgerows in England than anywhere else in the world so we’re very lucky to have this huge resource.”
“As a national policy, we’re trying to expand hedgerows in this country, and this will tell us where there are gaps in the hedgerow network that we could fill in.”
UK government has said the promise to restore and create another 48,000km of hedgegrow by 2037 and 72,000km by 2050 as part of the new Environmental Improvement Plan.
Check out the infographic, by visiting the BBC.
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