BASC Wildlife Fund grant pays off at Derbyshire shoot

Adder, bittern, nightjar, goshawk and kestrel are among the species now recorded at Monkwood, where shoot managers Jim and Catherine Allsop used a BASC Wildlife Fund grant to establish the site’s first biodiversity baseline. The trustees who toured the Derbyshire shoot on 31 July went home discussing what the next grant might do.

What did the grant pay for?

The Allsops applied to the fund in May 2025 and were awarded a grant by July that year, paying for a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal of the 270-acre shoot near Chesterfield. The appraisal is a structured survey of the habitats and species on the ground, and it gives the shoot a formal baseline against which every future season’s habitat work can be measured. For a shoot, that record does two jobs at once: it shows where habitat effort will do most good, and it evidences the conservation delivered on ground managed for shooting.

John Harlow, a trustee of the BASC Wildlife Fund, said: “What Jim and Catherine are achieving at Monkwood is exactly what the BASC Wildlife Fund exists to support. The PEA will give them a proper baseline to work from – one they’ll be able to measure future progress against.”

A mosaic of habitats

Jim Allsop said the grant had done more than pay for surveys. “The grant for our baseline surveys has been invaluable. It has opened many doors to shooting and conservation knowledge and people willing and keen to share it,” he said.

The surveys have changed the shoot’s ambitions too. “People often ask which species I really wanted on the property. I used to say barn owl, naively, because it’s one of my favourite birds. Now I understand the aim isn’t to chase a single species but to build a mosaic of habitats for as many as possible,” Mr Allsop said.

Monkwood is part of BASC’s Four Seasons campaign, which follows the conservation work done on shooting ground through the year. The fund’s grants have form on delivery: earlier this summer a £20,000 award helped the project that has made Kent free of breeding mink, in partnership with the Waterlife Recovery Trust.

What happens next?

Trustees discussed further grant support for Monkwood during the visit, and Mr Harlow described the shoot as “a model for what a grant and a lot of hard work on the ground can do”. Shoots and clubs weighing up conservation projects of their own can read the full account of the visit, and details of the fund, on the BASC website via the links below. The trustees will weigh further support for Monkwood as the habitat work develops.