‘Drowned Lands’ 85
project’s commitment to conservation is unquestioned and its anticipated fi ft y-
year duration demonstrates the extent of the challenge it faces. Approximately
99 per cent of the original wetland habitat disappeared in the wake of Fenland
draining. Th e project will be unable to restore much of this but the amalgama-
tion of Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen will produce a nature reserve large
enough to support several rare wetland species of fl ora and fauna. Given the
wetland’s ability to absorb water, it is hoped that the project will alleviate the
fl ooding that the area is prone to. Carbon dioxide released from exposed peat
soils should also be reduced by the provision of new plant cover. Although the
project is environmental in focus, its rhetoric also acknowledges a heritage func-
tion and one that inevitably privileges the ancient wetland over the modern Fen.
Th e project has, for example, been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the
organization that distributes a share of the UK National Lottery’s income to
preserve the nation’s heritage. Th e Great Fen website celebrates the Fenland’s
resistance to William the Conqueror and Hereward’s last stand against the Nor-
mans.^44 Although it concedes the profi tability of the drained Fens, references
to the region’s commercial success are accompanied by elegiac descriptions of
soil erosion, loss of traditional Fen occupations and the disappearance of the
meres, or lakes. While the project looks to rebalance the ecolog y of the region,
it may have been looked on as a retrograde step by Kingsley, one that unknow-
ingly romanticizes the masculine heroism of the old English and bypasses the
engineering endeavours of their descendants.