Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

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In a nutshell, it is the assemblages of priority species for Breckland conservation known or assumedto be present that should be the objective of conservation efforts, not the vegetation community inwhich they are believed to live. Vegetation is a fundamental vehicle for biodiversity delivery, but it isthe priority species, including priority plant species, that should be the objective. There has been toomuch preoccupation with the presence of NVC types as an end point, rather than either their qualityor value as an indicator of ecological condition and the potential of a site to support key species.Both Common Standards Monitoring (condition assessment) and Higher Level Stewardshipprescriptions can encourage a static approach to management. This is counter to the known dynamichistory of Breckland historic land-use, habitats, vegetation and species assemblages. It is also counterto the management interventions that are required to create suitable conditions for priorityassemblages, which cannot be provided by a status quo, attempting to hold conditions static or toarrest succession.Recommendations: Consideration should be given to revisit notification criteria for designated sites, particularlythose now known to hold significant invertebrate assemblages. It would be useful to explicitlyrelate these interest features to the conditions and processes required to sustain them. Conservation objectives should be specifically tailored to reflect the requirements of priorityspecies known or assumed to be present, or capable of being present with changes inmanagement, in light of what is now known about the requirements for priority species inBreckland. For Common Standards Monitoring, condition assessment criteria for NVC plant communitiesshould be revised, and localised, to reflect the conditions and processes required by keyassemblages of priority Breckland species. A small percentage of heather, including seedlings and pioneer heather or the appropriateconditions for their regeneration should be considered sufficient qualification of theEuropean feature (i.e. heather heathland, or H1 community of NVC) to be in appropriatecondition.Ground Disturbance RegimesA further set of institutional challenges arise through the management of uncertainty and change, forexample, where the potential outcomes of disturbance treatments are unknown. Objectives andcriteria for measuring success need to be rigorous, but flexible enough to allow a range of contrastingresults.Conflicts between conservation and archaeological interestsPotential conflicts between conservation land management and archaeological interests need to beresolved without requiring a separate impact assessment for each operation and site.188
Recommendation: Natural England and the County Archaeological Services meet to agree generic guidelines thatcan be used to decide which sub-set of physical disturbance operations require furtherconsultation and where. One example may be to allow rotovation or shallow ploughing onany site on previously arable soils.Cross-county partnershipsThe Norfolk/Suffolk border has long operated as a barrier to effective and coordinated delivery ofbiodiversity in Breckland. Most organisations and initiatives operate either north or south of thecounty boundary, including biological recording and monitoring schemes, management advice andpractice. In recent years this has begun to change, through increased partnership fostered by theclose liaison of the Norfolk and Suffolk Biodiversity Partnerships and through structural changes inNE.Recommendation: Organisations should operate to maintain and enhance cross-border integration andjoint working, both within and between organisations, to ensure collaborative workingat the landscape scale, to co-ordinate efforts and understanding and to share bestpractice. It is important that both Local County Records Centres continue to liaise and maintainthe Breckland Biodiversity Audit database as an updated and live resource, available tomanagers for strategic planning.Agri-environment schemesIt is self-evident from the findings of the Audit that the priority species in Breckland are far fromconfined to the designated sites, both statutory and non-statutory (Figure 26). Indeed, some keyecological processes that support priority species may be most readily achieved within the widerarable landscape. For the guild of species requiring disturbed and ungrazed conditions in particular,the establishment of cultivated margins under the ESA, maintained and extended underEnvironmental Stewardship, is a key mechanism for supporting this biodiversity in the area.Environmental Stewardship is also likely to be a key mechanism in promoting connectivity onfarmland (discussed below) and between designated sites, in order to create more resilient ecologicalnetworks.Recommendation: Ensure Natural England continues to target Breckland for agri-environment funding, with anemphasis on options and initiatives which support priority species and create and maintainresilient ecological networks.189
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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
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© 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
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Page 185 and 186: Strategic Challenges to Biodiversit
Page 187: Table 22. Problems arising from poo
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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