Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
The Cotswolds were designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966, with an expansion on 21 December 1990 to 1,990 square kilometres (768 sq mi). In 1991, all AONBs were measured again using modern methods. The official area of the Cotswolds AONB was increased to 2,038 square kilometres (787 sq mi). In 2000, the government confirmed that AONBs had the same landscape quality and status as National Parks. The Cotswolds AONB, which is the largest one in England and Wales, stretches from the border regions of South Warwickshire and Worcestershire, through West Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and takes in parts of Wiltshire, Bath, and North East Somerset in the South. Gloucestershire County Council is responsible for sixty-three percent of the AONB.
The Cotswolds Conservation Board is the organisation that exists to conserve and enhance the AONB. Established in 2004, the board carries out a range of work from securing funding for 'on the ground' conservation projects, to providing a strategic overview of the area for key decision makers, such as planning officials. The board is an independent organisation funded by Natural England and the seventeen local authorities that sit within the AONB.
While the beauty of the Cotswold AONB is intertwined with the villages that seem almost, to grow out of the landscape, the Cotswolds were primarily designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for the rare limestone grassland habitats as well as the old growth beech woodlands that typify the area. These habitat areas are also the last refuge for many other flora and fauna, with some so endangered that they are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Cleeve Hill, and its associated commons, is a fine example of a limestone grassland and it is one of the few locations where the Duke of Burgundy butterfly may still be found in abundance.
The uniqueness and value of the Cotswolds is engendered in the fact that five European Special Areas of Conservation, three National Nature Reserves and more than eighty Sites of Special Scientific Interest are contained within the Cotswold AONB.
The Cotswold Voluntary Wardens Service, now part of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, was established in 1968 to help conserve and enhance the area and now has more than 300 wardens.
The Cotswold Way is a long-distance footpath, approximately 103 miles (166 km) long, running the length of the AONB, mainly on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment with views over the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham.
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