American Express volunteers help protect “Europe’s rainforest in miniature”

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Earlier this month, American Express colleagues helped with the management of chalk grassland in the South Downs National Park, on the north slope of Kingston escarpment near Lewes, as part of the company’s colleague volunteer programme.

Under the supervision of the National Park’s rangers, Amex volunteers set to work cutting, raking off and clearing scrub, pulling out and cutting saplings to make the slope accessible to grazing sheep and cattle over the winter. Grazing helps expose the chalk grassland seed bank in time for spring.

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The slope had started to scrub over with bramble, gorse, hawthorn and blackthorn seedlings and needed to be cleared to help expose the important chalk grassland underneath.

Lowland chalk grassland is one of Western Europe’s most diverse plant communities, supporting a whole range of wildlife including wildflowers, insects, mammals and birds.

Amex colleagues with National Park's rangersAmex colleagues with National Park's rangers
Amex colleagues with National Park's rangers

Many of these species are specialists and unable to live anywhere else. Up to 40 species of flowering plants can be found in one square metre of lowland calcareous grassland, as well as up to 20 species of butterfly – and that’s why ecologists often call it “Europe’s rainforest in miniature”.

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In the South Downs these precious grasslands now cover just four per cent of the National Park’s area and the National Park Authority is working hard with partners like American Express, to make the grasslands bigger, better and more joined-up in order to help nature thrive.