Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

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In stark contrast to their relative importance amongst the biodiversity, only 13 (26%) have been designated for an invertebrate feature.Of these:o 12 have an invertebrate assemblage as a notified feature.o 2 have a RDB or schedule 8 invertebrate species as a notified feature.Plant communities do provide readily recognisable indicators of ecological processes and conditions.If key plant indicator species or features of site condition (e.g. sward height, bare ground) could bereadily found during a site visit, an intrinsic assumption may be that protecting the site can alsodeliver a suite of associated conservation priority species (mostly invertebrates) for which exhaustivesurvey was not possible or practical, due to constraints of taxonomic expertise, time and cost.Potential problems arise, however, when the objective of management becomes the delivery ofcondition criteria based on the narrow presence of the notified features, rather than the delivery ofpriority biodiversity that implicitly formed the reason for notification in the first place.For example, a site notified for a plant community may still retain the notified feature in some form,even though the structure and ecological processes have dramatically altered, due to a change ingrazing intensity, nutrient supply and the extent of small scale disturbance. Many of the conservationpriority species that were the implicit focus of conservation efforts and designation may actuallydisappear, even though the notified feature is still present.Within Natural England’s Common Standards Monitoring (CSM), the Condition Assessment Criteriafor vegetation communities (e.g. CG7, U1 or H1) were drawn up as broad guidelines. Attention wasgiven to ecological and management processes such as disturbance and grazing, with sward height,extent of bare ground or frequency of ‘undesirable’ species (e.g. ragwort, bracken) as proxies forcondition. Advisers are encouraged to revise these broad guidelines in order to develop criteriatables that can be site-specific or at least guided by local or regional priorities. However, due toconstraints of time and a lack of any clear and explicit bio-geographic objectives, this has not alwayshappened, even on key sites.As a result, the condition of at least some key Breckland SSSIs is assessed by criteria that, if then usedto guide and determine management objectives, would result in damage to the potential biodiversityinterest of the site. These problems are listed in Table 22.186
Table 22. Problems arising from poorly refined or inappropriate criteria used in condition assessment ofdesignated sites, and as indicators of success for Environmental Stewardship delivered through Higher LevelStewardship (HLS) lowland heathland and species-rich grassland prescriptionCSM generic conditionNVC assessment criteriaHLS Indicator of successH1 CSM: minimum 25%%heatherHLS: H01 (Maintenanceof Lowland Heathland):25%-95% heather cover.ProblemThis condition criteria encourageslow grazing intensity (so thatannual heather growth incrementis not entirely removed), that inturns favours grassy swards andnutrient accumulation andeutrophication.Recommended revisionAllow heather cover todecline below 25%,accepting that thecommunity mayconsequently be reclassifiedas a grass-heath communitytype.H1H1H1CG7/ U1CSM: undisturbed bareground 1% - 10%HLS: H01Cover of bare ground 1%- 10%.CSM:heavily disturbed bareground
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Securing Biodiversityin BrecklandGu
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Commissioning GroupNeil Featherston
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Wind-blown sand guild .............
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milder winters and increased winter
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Creating broad ruderal and disturbe
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Introduction“Few of the lowland d
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Inland DunesThe 1km wide dune and b
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Following the Black Death of the mi
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The area of grass-heath declined by
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PingosPingos are ground water fed p
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Breckland Conservation and the Need
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SSSI. The Breckland Forest SSSI cit
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The Breckland Biodiversity Audit ha
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The Breckland bio-geographic region
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polygons of alternating calcareous
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quality calcareous fen communities
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Figure 2. The extent of Breckland,
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Table 3. Grass-heath vegetation in
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The Conservation Resource: Designat
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All other SSSIs are less than 600 h
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GrasslandHeathWoodlandWetlandFlowin
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Calcicolous grasslandsShingle, stra
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Figure 4. Location of designated si
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Figure 6. Location of Plantlife’s
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Figure 7. Locations of stations in
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Scheme for Stilt & Stalk Flies, Dra
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Table 6. Rare vascular plant specie
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Recommendation BTO be commissioned
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Table 7. Species for which records
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Table 8. Descriptions of Red Data B
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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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Records of species from this guild
Page 135 and 136: © Jeremy Earlywww.natureconservati
Page 137 and 138: Figure 26. Number of Breckland cons
Page 139 and 140: Open with sward mosaics guildChryso
Page 141 and 142: Grazing without physical disturbanc
Page 143 and 144: Deadwood in an open-woodland ecoton
Page 145 and 146: Specific Requirement in a Variety o
Page 147 and 148: Management to Sustain Dry Terrestri
Page 149 and 150: Heather should rather be considered
Page 151 and 152: GrazingrequirementsLightly sheep-gr
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Page 155 and 156: Wind-blown sandThere is great uncer
Page 157 and 158: IntensityProcess Technique Immediat
Page 159 and 160: Complex Sward MosaicsComplex sward
Page 161 and 162: Management for Assemblages of Light
Page 163 and 164: Management for Species of Physicall
Page 165 and 166: Key Recommendations for Cultivated
Page 167 and 168: Shallow cultivation is preferable t
Page 169 and 170: Maidscross Hill is largely overgrow
Page 171 and 172: Ecological Requirements of Wetland
Page 173 and 174: numbers of conservation priority sp
Page 175 and 176: Recommendation Requirements of wetl
Page 179 and 180: Restored pingo complexAt Great Hock
Page 183 and 184: the difficulties of achieving this
Page 185: Strategic Challenges to Biodiversit
Page 189 and 190: Recommendation: Natural England and
Page 191 and 192: It is therefore vital to carefully
Page 193 and 194: Creating networks for resilienceTo
Page 195 and 196: More ambitious possibilities that c
Page 197 and 198: Figure 34. Example of a potential c
Page 199 and 200: Connectivity networks© Neal Armour
Page 201 and 202: and consider whether these repeated
Page 203 and 204: Ensure that scrub removal, ploughin
Page 205 and 206: ReferencesADAS. (1997) Biological M
Page 207 and 208: Haes, E. C. M. & Harding, P. T. (19
Page 209 and 210: Sastre, B.(2003). Ground spider com
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Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

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