A TEN-YEAR plan to preserve the Dales' flora and fauna has seen its first year hampered through the crisis of foot and mouth disease in the national park area.

Launched last October by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and its partners, Nature in the Dales aims to look at ways to protect the wildlife and its habitats in the park and help to ensure that the park's environment is protected for future generations.

The initiative stemmed from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. In response the UK Government published an action plan, and Nature in the Dales translates the aims of the UK plan at local level.

A forum was held this week to review the past year and reflect on the progress to date.

Dr Tim Thom, an ecologist at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, said: "The first year of the Biodiversity Action Plan has been marked by the worst crisis to hit Dales farming and the wider economy and the effects on biodiversity have been mixed.

"But we did manage to complete nine of the 10 actions we aimed to do with only a survey to look at limestone cliffs and screes unable to be carried out. Many other surveys could be carried out from the desk," he said.

Dr Thom said that although foot and mouth had hampered several site visits, much of the important ground work, such as educating the public, has been able to go ahead.

This has involved going into primary schools and organising field trips where possible to get across the importance of wildlife in the Dales to the young people.

Another of the project aims was to secure funding to see the action plans through for 10 years.

Much of this will come from the Government and through European funding and will cover things from continuing the education programme - probably between half and one-and-half-million pounds - to securing money towards encouraging farmers to look at different farming methods to protect the environment - possibly a further four or five million pounds.

"This could be something as simple as leaving a hay meadow longer before cutting the grass, or leaving parts of fields wet instead of draining them," explained Dr Thom.

Plans have been drawn up to protect rare and endangered species, including plants, ferns, invertebrates, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles.

Habitat plans have been developed to conserve and improve the limestone country, moorland and moorland fringe, dales, woodland and scrub, rivers and streams and built environments of the national park.

The way areas are grazed and the increasing number of rabbits are also to be looked at.

Dr Thom said there were species which were in great danger of disappearing from the Dales and named the yellow wagtail as an example which was being lost through a change of habitat.