ENVIRONMENT secretary Michael Gove has praised the work of conservationists, including one farmer in Marlborough, who have created a guide to help landowners protect wildlife on their land.

The collection of case studies has been gathered from farmers and estate owners of all sizes across the country by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust including Konrad Goess-Saurau, an arable farmer on the edge of Marlborough.

He said: “If you don’t recreate the habitat, you miss out on the delight of happening upon nature, unexpectedly coming upon a deer or a bird, these encounters are magical. The GWCT is very important. They are the first port of call on what to plant where, which cover crop mixes to use and how to manage gamebirds.”

Mr Gove praised conservationists's success at combining food production with an increase in wildlife against the general trend of dramatic declines across the UK.

Mr Gove said: “When we leave the Common Agricultural Policy we will be able to follow evidence like this with even greater ambition. We will be able to incentivise the kinds of collaboration and innovation that bring the transformative, landscape-scale changes outlined in our 25-year environment plan.

“This collection of case studies provides a vision of a country of which we can all be proud.”

Working Conservationists: The Land Managers Saving British Wildlife was launched at Westminster and presented to MPs, Defra and Natural England officials, conservation groups and food retailers, such Sainsbury’s and Nestle