Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group OnePlanet

Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group

Case Study

Land

Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG South West)

FWAG SW provides independent advice and supports real change on farmland by working with land managers and landowners. They combine an understanding of farming systems, land management, and farm businesses with habitat creation, habitat management, and species conservation to effect positive environmental change in the wider landscape and improve management of natural capital assets like soil, water, and carbon.

FWAG SW specialises in making government policy, environmental incentives, regulations, and emerging environmental markets accessible for farmers and land managers at a practical delivery level.

FWAG have piloted the use of OnePlanet as part of the Defra ‘Local Delivery ELM (Environmental Land Management) Test & Trial (T&T)’ they are leading, in Somerset, which they hope to extend into Phase 4 in 2025.

We love that you can bring a huge amount of people together and give them responsibility for updating their own space as part of the bigger picture. It keeps all data relevant and it appears in all formats for whatever purpose you need!

Challenges

Supporting and enabling county shared objectives across relevant local strategies, eg:

1. Somerset County Council’s Climate Strategy

2. Somerset’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)

3. Protected Landscaped Targets and Outcomes framework

Beyond this, OnePlanet also enables:

Working with groups of farmers to facilitate various collaborative projects.

Streamlining partnership working towards shared goals, with various partner organisations, inc. Somerset Wildlife Trust, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, RSPB, Wessex Water, Somerset Rivers Authority, Natural England, Environment Agency, Exmoor National Park Authority, Mendip, Quantocks and Blackdown National Landscapes, and the council.

Collaborative work with communities, using the Integrated Local Delivery model to inspire and enable them to protect their local environments and build local resilience.

OnePlanet Solution

Strategy mapping – Systems mapping the various projects and farmer collaborations being facilitated by FWAG as Action Plans. This is done with support from OnePlanet, to convert PDFs into the OnePlanet common language of ‘OAIs’, allowing strategies to communicate and collaborate around ‘Shared Outcomes’.

Ecosystem plan – Strategic organisation of the T&T around core delivery areas and KPIs. With support of a OnePlanet Consultant, FWAG developed an Ecosystem plan containing the core Outcomes and Indicators from each delivery area.

Training – Individual online sessions and webinars were delivered to deliver basic training to project participants and advanced training for workspace managers.

Teams – Coordination of the various ‘digital planning areas’ and spatial designations using ‘Teams’ functionality in OnePlanet.

Notifications – Automatic updates for Workspace Managers when important updates are made by Editors, as well as to remind Editors when they need to provide updates for the areas of delivery they are responsible for.

Benefits and Return on Investment

The project would be possible without OnePlanet, but would be far more time-consuming and far less inter-connected.

Speed – OnePlanet has allowed us to deliver this project faster and with a greater depth. The platform reduced duplication of effort and streamlines collaboration between parties – which is critical in nature recovery work.
Simple evidencing and reporting – Easy evidencing of the pilot’s delivery around the three core delivery areas for the pilot programme and allows reporting in any format.
Time Saving – OnePlanet provides a depth of understanding of the whole system that cannot be shared at steering group meetings, and reduces adminstrative tasks. This has freed up time to ensure consistency, unpicking gaps and making connections, enhancing delivery.

Overcoming systemic barriers – OnePlanet removed bottlenecks and allowed information to be centralised, while leaving room for partners to work in their own way.