SHEEP farmers in parts of Yorkshire and the North-East are to benefit from a £3m national scheme from English Nature.

The Sheep and Wildlife Enhancement Scheme, launched last year with a £2.5m budget to encourage farmers to graze sheep in a way beneficial to wildlife, now has a further £3m so it can continue this year.

Sheep farmers taking part on the North York Moors will receive £230,000, with a further £265,000 for those on the South Pennines.

Almost £700,000 will have gone to Yorkshire farmers in the first two years of the scheme, including "gathering payments" of £17,000 from the North York Moors National Park, which is working with English Nature.

The scheme, tailored to the specific needs of the area, is designed to encourage farmers to manage their sheep to achieve grazing levels and foddering methods which will sustain moorland vegetation.

In Yorkshire, the money is targeted at the North York Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest and the South Pennine Moors SSSI, two of England's finest SSSIs.

Both are clothed in a deep blanket of peat, formed over several thousands of years, and vast expanses of heather moorland. The habitats are globally rare and support scarce plants and insects as well as internationally important numbers of breeding birds, including merlin, golden plover and curlew.

SWES is based on the principle that many important wildlife habitats need the grazing skills of sheep farmers to keep them healthy.

In the last five years the North York Moors have experienced a dramatic decline in moorland grazing. Changes in the farming economy and a general fall in the number of younger farmers willing to establish and maintain moorland sheep flocks has meant remaining farmers face an increasingly difficult task.

Dave Clayden, English Nature's North York Moors conservation officer, said: "The scheme has been very well received by farmers in 2003 and helped wildlife to thrive on an area of about 15,000 hectares."

In the North-East, more than £1m will have been given to farmers over the two years.

The scheme has allowed upland sheep farmer Derek Milburn to reduce the number of sheep on his land on the Simonside Hills. It will help purple heather moorland and blanket bog plants, such as cotton grass, to thrive.

In the North Pennines, an agreement to reduce sheep grazing in the winter will help restore areas of upland moorland to benefit breeding birds like merlin and golden plover.

Claire Berresford, North-East SWES project officer, said 21 farmers signed up to the scheme in the region in 2003. They had helped to bring 7,500 hectares of heather moorland and blanket bog back into good condition for wildlife.

Tony Laws, English Nature's area manager for the North-East, said farmers, with their skills and experience, were in the best position to conserve and enhance wildlife.

"The large uptake of the current environmental schemes demonstrates the willingness of farmers to work towards environmental goals," he said.

There was, however, still a real need to strengthen the partnership between nature conservation and farming to tackle continuing problems. "The environment is inextricably linked to social and economic factors in the uplands and sustainable solutions must take all these elements into account," said Mr Laws.

About £500,000 will be targeted at several selected areas of common and non-common land in Northumberland and the North Pennines this year.