Fen Management Handbook - Scottish Natural Heritage

– Prioritise objectives to achieve Habitat and Species Action Plan targets.
– Consult national, regional and local visions for habitats including
wetlands, for example the England 50 year Wetland Vision.
– Generally the rarest habitats are those which take precedence in terms
of conservation management.
– Balance the site owner’s wishes with statutory obligations and nature
conservation objectives.
– Intra-nationally agreed guidelines for setting conservation objectives,
such as the JNCC’s Common Standards for Monitoring (CSM) contain
much helpful information.
Fens which are characteristic of low-nutrient situations are generally
regarded as conservation priorities, particularly in the UK lowlands,
because of the significant loss of this type of habitat over the past 200
years. Base-rich groundwater-fed fens are amongst the rarest type of
fen because of the very limited existence of conditions matching their
requirement for a permanent supply of low-nutrient, high base status
water. Priority should therefore be given to nurturing and expanding this
type of habitat where opportunities arise rather than creation of other
less restricted habitats such as reedbed or wet grassland in a situation
where a base-rich groundwater-fed fen could be restored.
A coarse prioritisation of wetland restoration effort, based on habitat rarity and
‘difficulty to restore or recreate’ has been attempted in several reports and
visions (e.g. Penny Anderson Associates, 2004 and England Wetland Vision
(Hume, 2008)). The main purpose of the ranking is to ensure that the very limited
opportunities available to restore or create the rarer habitats are not missed but
clearly each of these habitats has its own value and should not be considered
‘second rate’. In some parts of the country it may only be feasible to recreate less
rare habitats. The suggested order is:
Lowland raised bog
Base-rich groundwater-fed fen
Transition mire and quaking bog
Floodplain fen
Fen meadow/Molinia meadows
Low-diversity wet grassland
Reedbed
Wet woodland
As always, there are exceptions where maintaining the status quo, rather than
management intervention is in the best interests of nature conservation.
Within the Montiaghs Moss ASSI in Northern Ireland there are areas
where fen has developed on a degraded bog and is now of value in its
own right. Given that raised bog is widespread in Northern Ireland, it
would not be appropriate to loose the valuable fen communities, which
support a rare and diverse invertebrate fauna by recreating raised bog.
However, natural succession means that the fen will eventually develop
into wet woodland and/or bog over a longer period of time unless it is
deliberately managed to maintain fen communities. Further details of
Montiagh’s Moss are included in the case study at the end of Section 7:
Fen Water Management.
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