

Great Wheal Seton, Cornwall – Wildlife Habitat on the Edge
24/01/2025
By Steve Jones Cornwall County Dragonfly Recorder
The Red River Valley Local Nature Reserve near Camborne in Cornwall is a 3-mile-long wildlife corridor that has developed along the abandoned tin streaming sites that once dominated the landscape of the area. The best areas of the reserve not only provide a haven for some nationally important wildlife species, but they are also a fantastic marriage of our Cornish industrial heritage and biodiversity.
The land is owned by Cornwall Council and was designated as an LNR just over 2 decades ago. Sadly in these financially straightened times there has been virtually no investment in the reserve and only a few small areas are managed by the volunteer group the Red River Rescuers who keep those habitats in prime condition for a host of wetland wildlife.
“Rewilding” is the conservation buzzword at the moment as many of the big wildlife organizations concentrate on expanding existing reserves by buying surrounding land and bringing those additional blocks of land back into a habitat management regime where nature thrives. Bigger patches of wildlife friendly habitat can make vulnerable species populations more viable and sustainable by connecting isolated pockets.
The irony here is that the unfashionable Red River Valley LNR is a THREE MILE stretch of wildlife habitat that runs almost from the coast right to the doorstep of one of Cornwall’s biggest towns, bringing with it some unusual species of wildlife that you simply won’t see at some of the far more celebrated nature reserves in the county. And yet this fantastic wildlife resource is facing the prospect of the habitat adjoining it contracting rather expanding as the Great Wheal Seton section of the reserve faces the immediate threat of development right up to its border. This short film briefly sets out why the Red River Valley LNR is so special and outlines the threats that it now faces as the adjoining land, (including a County Wildlife Site), has been degraded ahead of a planning application being made.
You can find out more about this story and the work of the Red River Rescuers here: https://www.redriverrescuers.weebly.com