Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

SSSI condition assessment mechanisms 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.Strategic planning and creation of networks The Biodiversity Audit Commissioning Group should continue to coordinate an integratedapproach to biodiversity delivery. Organisations should operate to maintain and enhance cross-border integration and jointworking, both within and between organisations, to ensure collaborative working at thelandscape scale, to co-ordinate efforts and understanding and to share best practice. It is important that both Local County Records Centres continue to liaise and maintain theBreckland Biodiversity Audit database as an updated and live resource, available tomanagers for strategic planning. Ensure Natural England continues to target Breckland for agri-environment funding, withan emphasis on options and initiatives which support priority species and create andmaintain resilient ecological networks. Opportunities should be taken to strategically buffer and link existing SSSI units into largecontiguous networks wherever possible, allowing integrated grazing management andenhanced populations of specialist assemblages. Connectivity among dispersed sites could be achieved by providing juxtaposition of grassstrips, disturbed ground, and cultivated field margins along existing track-ways. Connectivity both within and across the forest landscape may be achieved by creatingwide, physically disturbed ‘invertebrate super-highways’, that would provideopportunities for spatially continuous un-shaded conditions, population percolation andflanked by nectar rich ungrazed flower rich verges. Connectivity elements may be provided by revitalising stock droving activity to providecross links with these ‘super-highways’.204