The new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) that will replace existing agri-environment programmes over the coming years, is being piloted from 2021 and rolled out in full from 2024. Currently underway across the country are ELMS Tests and Trials working with Land Managers to co-design the scheme.
Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and partners are running two ELMS Tests over the coming year and will focus on the Humberhead Levels in the north and South Lincolnshire. These Tests will explore specific elements for the delivery of the new scheme, working on a landscape-scale to identify and prioritise the ecosystem services that provide the public goods important to the areas. How these can be packaged to attract public funding and private investment. What mechanisms, information and advice are needed. The Test will be supported by the expertise of the Local Environmental Record Centres and the University of Lincoln.
From 2024, through the Environmental Land Management Scheme Land Managers will be paid for public goods they can provide individually and collaboratively on a landscape-scale. Through activities delivering for example, water availability and natural flood management measures, healthy soils and peat, recovering nature and connecting it through corridors and stepping stones, protecting and supporting our cultural heritage and the historic environment.