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Government urged to protect Britain's heathland habitat
Shakespeare's grim vision of a ruined landscape is coming true for
Britain's tattered scraps of ancient lowland heath, according to a
survey by Natural England which warns that six plant and animal species
are facing extinction as a result.
Three types of bird, the sand
lizard, a gentian and a moss are barely clinging on to land no longer
needed for growing gorse, bracken and heather for animal bedding and
fodder, say scientists who have comprehensively analysed the 60,000
remaining hectares for the first time.
Outside a small number of
protected areas, such as the Devil's Punchbowl in Surrey, management of
the modest, scrubby land is described as weak and inefficient, even in
places where conservation grants are being paid.
All but a
handful of the 104 sites surveyed are described as being in poor
condition and failing to reach the standards set for Sites of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSI) which form the officially protected
remainder of the country's lowland heath.
The failure of
voluntary measures demands government action to bring far more of the
heath estate - still the largest in western Europe - into protected
status, Natural England's chairman, Sir Martin Doughty, said yesterday.
Three quarters of the SSSIs were showing signs of gradual
recovery, but not yet enough to guarantee the survival of threatened
species if more land was not safeguarded.
The species at risk
are three birds which have been familiar in Britain for centuries, the
nightjar, the stone curlew and the Dartford warbler, along with the
sand lizard and the marsh gentian and marsh clubmoss. Sir Martin said:
"We need to act now to help save their habitats from total degradation.
"There is clear evidence that many of the larger heathlands
which are entirely managed for conservation, such as the Devil's Punch
Bowl or the East Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, are in better condition.
To help restore other sites to these high standards we must ensure that
they are properly targeted through stewardship schemes."
Lowland
heath has partly missed out on a sense of national emergency because of
the abundance of upland heather moors - which have a secure place in
the national psyche through literary classics such as Emily Bronte's
Wuthering Heights. The lowland areas are far less spectacular and owe
their creation to modest and now almost entirely abandoned farming
practices such as providing small-scale animal feed, byres and low
quality thatch.
Always patchy, because heather, bracken and gorse
were grown on land too poor in nutrition to sustain cereal crops or
rich grazing, lowland heath has also suffered particular attrition from
urban development.
Martin Wainwright
gardian.co.uk
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As always with the media I wither at the doomsday scenario often portrayed in newspapers (and the Guardian of all papers!). I've been involved in conservation for over 20 years working specifically on heathlands. While our lowland heaths have contracted to a fraction of their previous extent, say 200 years ago, there is still enough heathland, thankfully, to still carry substantial numbers of 'endangered' species such as Nightjar, Marsh Gentian, Dartford Warblers, and Sand Lizards along with a multitude of others. The problem facing these species is that they are habitat specific (although Nightjars frequently next in forestry plantations and occasionally downland). The Stone Curlew is primarily a downland species so I question the validity of this as a purely heathland species as implied. These species are themselves not in danger of going extinct. Indeed, Dartford Warblers have been at their highest breeding numbers since records began (say 60 years ago) while Sand Lizards, at least in Dorset, are found in the most shabby patches of heathland as well as in other similar scrubby habitats. These species are not at risk directly but their habitat is if these sites lose their protection in law. In fact the greatest enemy is the lack of long-term funding to ensure proper continuous management as well as a lack of funds to obtain land (invariably farmland which has become uneconomical to farm) which can be turned back to heath. I fear this government is unlikely to sort this problem out to safeguard our disappearing habitats in general. The last 30 years have seen a slow but steady erosion of the conservation cause in this country.
Our heaths are generally in good shape but pressure from people living close to them (walkers, dogs, bikers, scramble bikes, etc.) causes a huge amount of disturbance as well as damage. This is not helped by the CRoW Act and the new idea of government to change English Nature (itself a poor excuse of its former incarnation, the Nature Conservancy Council [NCC]) and amalgamating it with a few cast-offs from other government bodies to call it Natural England; the result being a government body that caters more for people having fun outdoors than for nature conservation. In essence they will want to turn our National Nature Reserves into Country Parks. While members here have an inherent love, understanding and respect of nature and would wish to conserve the wildness of these areas as much as the wildlife, the general public at large are ignorant while a few despise it (for whatever reason). Even before this recent change, the NCC was transformed into the English Nature which created problems. One of them was that once large areas, i.e., regions which covered several counties (and knew what everyone was doing and planning and kepan eye on one another) were split up into 'teams' which now included, for example, 'site managers' instead of reserve wardens - same job, different name, but the new name gave a hint at the organisations growing detachment from the conservation cause. Above all, the split resulted in smaller, more autonomous areas, now county specific, whose management was now governed by the local tin-pot general and his aids of the 'team' and not neseccarily by the previous accepted countrywide view on land/habitat management and conservation. Some practised very good conservation, while some were diabolocal and caused damage, even localised species extinction (yes, English Nature were the main cause of species loss than any other means doing its period of existence!). Yet they were not answerable to anyone so no-one could tell them off or sack (or technically prosecute) the relevant staff when they screwed it up. Not only were they autonomous but they were also above the wildlife protection law (and they were/are the ones designated to implement it). It is not overstating the point that nature conservation is at its lowest ebb since the hay-days and optimism of the 1950's to 1970's.
I seem to have gone on and digressed a little but I do get a little peeved at seeing poor journalism plus I thought it might helpful to you all to get a behind-the-scene's view (albeit potted) of current decline in nature conservation in the UK.
Scrubcutter