Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

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seems to have become lost from the consciousness of modern conservationists. More recentlyBreckland has been regarded as one of England’s ‘lowland heathland regions’ (e.g. an area stillsupporting concentrations of lowland heathland, among a suite of regions that includes Dorset, theNew Forest, the Weald, Surrey and Hampshire, and the Suffolk Sandlings). This perception ofBreckland as a heathland region has permeated through priorities, objectives and approaches toconservation implementation. This has been further reinforced by designation of someinternationally important features classified as ‘heathland’ due to the presence of heather Callunavulgaris within the community, and this has not always led to management that is appropriate forthe conservation of priority biodiversity.Breckland was first named by W.G. Clarke, after the profusion of fallow ‘brecks’ (intakes fromheathland that were converted to unintensive arable, often with long fallow rotations) thatdominated much of the landscape in the late 1800s and early 1900s after the virtual abandonmentof cereal farming. W. G. Clarke began describing the region’s natural history, archaeology andlandscape, in his contributions to the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society,culminating in 1925 with his book “In Breckland Wilds”. Clarke’s account has become a definingvision of what Breckland once was – a landscape of rabbits, warrens, sand-dune and shingle, grazedheath and abandoned fields. However, it is important to recognise that the landscape Clarkedescribed in 1890-1925 was just one snapshot-in-time, of a landscape undergoing a particularmajor transition, within a much longer history of upheaval and dynamic land-use change. Someaspects of this are explored in the section below.Dynamic Changes in BrecklandThe rapid arrival of warm, dry conditions after the last ice age, allowed raw chalk and sandy soils tobe colonised by Mediterranean and steppe species. Although forest cover then developed, thecombination of immature mineral soils, drought and large numbers of red deer Cervus elaphusalong the fen margin (as indicated by archaeological remains) suggests forest cover in Brecklandmay have been fairly open. Breckland was settled and cleared by arriving farmers during theNeolithic, c. 6,000 years ago, and still retains post-glacial species requiring open conditions thathave disappeared from most of lowland Britain. Subsequent forest clearance, shifting cultivationand stock grazing created more open habitats. A pattern of cereal cultivation and grazing continuedthrough the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British periods, and after Saxon Estates weresubsumed and redistributed by the arriving Normans, continued in varying forms until the late1800s. In general, cereal cultivation was more prevalent in river valleys, with grazed commons andheaths on the drier plateaus and interfluves. However, all aspects of the land use were dynamic,and there have been changes and upheavals through time.The type and intensity of domestic grazing have changed greatly through the centuries and inrecent times. The mixed livestock flocks and herds that grazed during the Neolithic, Bronze Age,Iron Age and Romano-British periods included more cattle than in later periods, when the Medievaleconomy increasingly focused on sheep and wool production. Cattle would have imposed adifferent type of grazing to sheep. Sheep grazing declined from the 17 th century (Postgate 1962).For example approximately 2,200 sheep grazed Lakenheath Warren in the 13 th century; by the late1940s only 600 occasionally grazed and these were withdrawn in 1956 (Crompton and Sheail 1975).Sheep flocks were already largely absent from the landscape later described by Clarke.12
Inland DunesThe 1km wide dune and blow-out atLakenheath Warren, described by AlexWatt, was levelled during WWII.A small fragment of this dune systemremains at Wangford Warren, and otherfixed dunes survive at Icklingham Plainsand Foxhole Heath.There is little mobile wind-blownaccumulating sand in remaining systems,that are now fixed dune (lichen dune,grass swards or sand sedge Carexarenaria dominated vegetation).13
Page 1 and 2: Securing Biodiversityin BrecklandGu
Page 3 and 4: Commissioning GroupNeil Featherston
Page 5 and 6: Wind-blown sand guild .............
Page 7 and 8: milder winters and increased winter
Page 9 and 10: Creating broad ruderal and disturbe
Page 11: Introduction“Few of the lowland d
Page 15 and 16: Following the Black Death of the mi
Page 17 and 18: The area of grass-heath declined by
Page 19 and 20: PingosPingos are ground water fed p
Page 21 and 22: Breckland Conservation and the Need
Page 23 and 24: SSSI. The Breckland Forest SSSI cit
Page 25 and 26: The Breckland Biodiversity Audit ha
Page 27 and 28: The Breckland bio-geographic region
Page 29 and 30: polygons of alternating calcareous
Page 31 and 32: quality calcareous fen communities
Page 33 and 34: Figure 2. The extent of Breckland,
Page 35 and 36: Table 3. Grass-heath vegetation in
Page 37 and 38: The Conservation Resource: Designat
Page 39 and 40: All other SSSIs are less than 600 h
Page 41 and 42: GrasslandHeathWoodlandWetlandFlowin
Page 43 and 44: Calcicolous grasslandsShingle, stra
Page 45 and 46: Figure 4. Location of designated si
Page 47 and 48: Figure 6. Location of Plantlife’s
Page 49 and 50: Figure 7. Locations of stations in
Page 51 and 52: Scheme for Stilt & Stalk Flies, Dra
Page 53 and 54: Table 6. Rare vascular plant specie
Page 55 and 56: Recommendation BTO be commissioned
Page 57 and 58: Table 7. Species for which records
Page 59 and 60: Table 8. Descriptions of Red Data B
Page 61 and 62: If the sub-species was designated b
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Collating and Synthesising Species
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Table 11. Published, documentary an
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Baron de Worms, C.G.M. (1953) Colle
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Guild AnalysisA number of habitat a
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The specific questions for the work
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Findings of the Breckland Biodivers
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Recording Effort and CoverageThere
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Butterfly Conservation (Suffolk) 17
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Norfolk Biodiversity InformationSer
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Figure 11. Number of taxonomic grou
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difference is partly attributable t
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There were Breckland specialist spe
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Figure 13. Proportion of Breckland
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Distribution of Breckland Conservat
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Figure 15. Number of Breckland cons
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Evidence of Climatic Change: Long-T
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Figure 17. Total seasonal precipita
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Biodiversity Implications of the Ch
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Ariel depositions to agricultural s
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the status of Deschampsia flexuosa.
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The relative effects of ploughing,
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Trends in Species Status: Extinctio
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HymenopteraHymenopteraHymenopteraCo
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In addition to the loss of rare lic
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edstraw Galium parisiense (Tansley
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The relative extent of lichen rich
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The Feasibility and Usefulness of t
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Across patch arrangementLandscape c
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Across patcharrangementJuxtapositio
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Delivery of Multiple Species by Int
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Mechanical disturbance to create br
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estricted to road verges, with the
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131
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Records of species from this guild
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© Jeremy Earlywww.natureconservati
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Open with sward mosaics guildChryso
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Grazing without physical disturbanc
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Deadwood in an open-woodland ecoton
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Specific Requirement in a Variety o
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Management to Sustain Dry Terrestri
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Heather should rather be considered
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GrazingrequirementsLightly sheep-gr
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a mosaic of overlapping ploughed, a
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Wind-blown sandThere is great uncer
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IntensityProcess Technique Immediat
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Complex Sward MosaicsComplex sward
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Management for Assemblages of Light
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Management for Species of Physicall
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Key Recommendations for Cultivated
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Shallow cultivation is preferable t
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Maidscross Hill is largely overgrow
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Ecological Requirements of Wetland
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numbers of conservation priority sp
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Recommendation Requirements of wetl
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Restored pingo complexAt Great Hock
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the difficulties of achieving this
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Strategic Challenges to Biodiversit
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Table 22. Problems arising from poo
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Recommendation: Natural England and
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It is therefore vital to carefully
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Creating networks for resilienceTo
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More ambitious possibilities that c
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Figure 34. Example of a potential c
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Connectivity networks© Neal Armour
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and consider whether these repeated
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Ensure that scrub removal, ploughin
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ReferencesADAS. (1997) Biological M
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Haes, E. C. M. & Harding, P. T. (19
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Sastre, B.(2003). Ground spider com
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Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

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