It is with great pleasure that we announce the re-starting of the GxFF awards program, and the appointment of Adrian M0PAI as the Award Manager.
The new awards will be issued in steps of 11, and will be available to all via WWFF Logsearch – including those who received awards from the previous series.
Eleven new references (GFF-0383 to GFF-0393 inclusive) have been added to the GFF Directory…
eight of these are in Norfolk, requested by Andy G7SQW
three are in the Northern Pennines, requested by Carl 2E0HPI
Several of these have either already been activated, or imminent activations have been announced.
GFF – Norfolk
As part of a planned update to the entire GxFF Directory, and linked to the assessment of the new entries (see above), all entries within the County of Norfolk now have Region and Worked All Britain square information provided.
The Region information uses the NUTS1 regions (EE representing Eastern England) and the County or Unitary Authority – so for Norfolk, all entries are tagged as EE-No.
In turn, all other references will be updated in a similar manner.
This site will bring news and activities of the World Flora and Fauna Program in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and the British Overseas Territories.
The original Wealden Heaths SPA was named Thursley, Hankley and Frensham Commons SPA and assigned WWFF reference GFF-0207.
Phase I of this SPA added further protection to the Thursley, Hankley and Frensham Commons SSSI, which also forms the southern part of the Thursley, Ash, Pirbright and Chobham SAC – the northern part of the SAC forms part of the Thames Basin Heaths SPA (qv).
Phase II
Subsequently, the SPA has been extended and renamed, with the addition of four standalone SSSIs. These have now been assigned WWFF GFF references as follows:
GFF-0355 = Devil’s Punch Bowl SSSI
GFF-0356 = Woolmer Forest SSSI and SAC
GFF-0357 = Bramshott and Ludshott Commons SSSI
GFF-0358 = Broxhead and Kingsley Commons SSSI
It is hoped that these will all be activated over the coming months.
After much deliberation, it has been decided to assign a reference (GFF-0354) to Alice Holt Royal Forest.
This area of Royal Forest is an Ancient Woodland, owned and managed by the Forestry Commission – of sufficient importance that the original boundary of the South Downs National Park (GFF-0018) was revised to include it!
Previous WWFF activity from the forest, of reference GFF-0018, will be reallocated to GFF-0354.
Note: this article was originally posted to M0YMA.UK
All activators please note, that with immediate effect, all GxFF reference numbers are now four-digit, with the addition of a leading zero. This is bring GxFF into line with the many programs that have already adopted the four-digit convention.
So, for example, GFF-328 becomes GFF-0328.
Would all activators (and chasers claiming Park-To-Park award credit) please adopt the four-digit number
Note: this article was originally posted to M0YMA.UK
When the World Flora Fauna program was first established, the Directory appears to have put together with limited knowledge of the UK’s designated areas.
Originally, reference GFF-121 was defined as Castle Bottom – which is assumed to have meant the small area designated as a National Nature Reserve.
Previously, as adding new references was nigh on impossible, the GFF Committee extended and clarified the scope of GFF-121 to include all 13 separate Sites of Special Scientific Importance (SSSIs) within the wider Thames Basin Heaths SPA.
Subsequently, after representation from potential activators, some standalone parts of the SPA were granted their own GFF/WWFF references: