Natural heritage in the UK is set to receive a £5m boost for two projects after the Heritage Lottery Fund announced a new £16m round of funding.

The UK-wide ‘Saving our Magnificent Meadows’ campaign and ‘The Great Heath Living Landscape’ campaign in south-west England will bring together a variety of partners and bodies to protect some of the UK’s most vulnerable habitats and species.

The ‘Magnificent Meadows’ campaign, which received £2.1m in funding, will help Plantlife International deliver a three-year conservation programme to safeguard nine meadow and grassland sites across the UK.

The Great Heath Living Landscape campaign has received £2.7m in funding and encompasses the Poole, Bournemouth, Christchurch and East Dorset areas of England. The local environment will be secured an enhanced as a Natural England ‘Focus Area’.

Other projects to receive funding are Salford’s Bridgewater Canal (£3.6m), Dorset’s Kimmeridge Fossil Museum (£2.7m), Surrey’s Limnerslease: ‘Saving the Studios’ (£2.4m) and South Tynedale Railways Preservation Society Heritage and Environmental Sustainability project (£4.3m).

Three projects have also been granted initial support funding including the Capability Brown Birthday and Festival (£905,200), Lister Steps Carnegie Community Hub (£4.1m) and CITiZAN: The Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (£1.4m).