WORK to clear 100 acres of plantation and scrub from around Sidbury Hill near Tidworth is one of the main targets for the Salisbury Plain 'Life' Project this year.

In the project Defence Estates and English Nature have agreed to work to maintain and restore the plain's 35,000 acres of chalk grassland that form north west Europe's largest habitat of its type.

It is a valuable haven for birds, butterflies and 18,000 juniper bushes - and archaeologists.

For instance the Army land on the plain provides the habitat for a fifth of all breeding stone curlews in the UK.

And a further 12 per cent are found on civilian owned parts of the plain.

In total the conservation project on the plain will cost £2,130,000 over four years, in part funded through the European Commission's LIFE Nature Fund.

Currently the military allows grazing on more than 7,500 acres of their land but the farm animals are to be allowed on to a further 9,000 acres as part of the project which will also see 250 acres of young broad-leaved plantations planted within species rich chalk grassland.

The MoD is also committed to undertake an environmental appraisal which is needed to comply with legislation and in the light of plans to increase military use of the plain and base more soldiers in Tidworth.

Part of the approach will involve the development of a sustainable training model which will assist the management of training on the plain while maintaining the area's ecological and archaeological resource.

It is an approach welcomed by county archaeologist Roy Canham.

He said: "I was particularly pleased to see that the difficult issue of quantifying training activity is under review."