HEREFORDSHIRE'S newest nature reserve has been dedicated to the memory of a man widely acclaimed as the top UK environmental journalist of his generation.

Wigmore's Parky Meadow, 21 acres of sedges, rushes, ragged robin and marsh bedstraw, and home to lapwing, snipe and reed bunting, will be a living monument to Marek Meyer, who died last year from cancer aged 52.

Mr Meyer, who had a home near Kington with his wife Sue and son Jamie, edited an influential journal - Environmental Data Services (ENDS) Report - for 20 years.

His dogged persistence in getting to the truth and unearthing details that escaped most others made his work essential reading for business, environmental groups and policy makers.

When Britain's then Environment Minister Michael Meacher travelled to Japan in 1997 for a meeting which resulted in the UN Kyoto protocol on climate change, he spent much of the journey reading ENDS.

Following Marek's death, Environment Agency chief Barbara Young paid tribute to his "incisive and terrier-like approach".

"The world needs Mareks, whose dedication to keeping both regulators and business up to the environmental mark will shine like a beacon in his memory," she said.

Family members and friends decided they would like to help set up a memorial by helping conservation in Herefordshire and they raised £25,000 in an appeal.

Former colleague Mamta Patel, from Sussex, helped lead a sponsored walk of adults and children over the South Downs last month, which raised £3,500.

"We felt it was a perfect way to remember Marek," said Ms Patel. "He loved walking and he loved the Herefordshire countryside."

The appeal cash will pay for maintenance and development work at Parky Meadow and other wetland sites managed by Herefordshire Nature Trust.

On Sunday, trust chairman Betty Windser unveiled an information board bearing Marek's name at the gate to the Wigmore site.

"This reserve is very much in keeping with Marek's spirit," Sue, his widow, told the Hereford Times. "He would have loved it. He was someone who noticed every flower, beautiful grasses and rushes.

"We are very happy to have been involved in something like this."

Once part of the great moor of Wigmore, a marshy area in the floodplain of the River Teme, some local people remember winter skating on the flooded and frozen fields.

Ironically, there is no permanent water source and the trust has to find and tap a source for cattle. A small number will graze the meadows to hold back scrub and restore ecological balance - the site has not been grazed for several years.

The new reserve will have friends at home and abroad. A Wigmore School link and a twinning link with a tree nursery in Madagascar are being set up.