Burnham Beeches Management Plan 2010 - the City of London ...

4.1.6 Maintaining habitats through grazing
Wood pasture, heathland and mire all need to
be grazed in order to get them into favourable
condition and then maintain them. Livestock
have been reintroduced to Burnham Beeches in
the last 20 years and low density grazing with
cattle, ponies and pigs now takes place on
43 hectares of the Reserve.
As stated earlier, the
benefits of grazing can
clearly be seen in the
habitat structure and
the positive responses
of key plants and
animals; the livestock have also been popular
with the public and the more open structure
that they create is an attractive landscape to
walk through that feels safer to visitors.
The aim within the next 10 years is to expand this
pastoral landscape across the whole of the
Beeches, perhaps increasing the number of
cattle/ponies to a maximum of 40. This will also
require a review of how the livestock are
managed, and there may be options for meat
production. As the area grazed increases, more
roads will be drawn into it, enabling traffic
calming measures to be incorporated. The
separate document ‘Restoring the Pastoral
85% want cattle grids
installed on roads
2009 public consultation
71% want to see
as much of
Burnham Beeches
as possible grazed
2009 public consultation
Landscape at Burnham
Beeches’ gives more
details.
Target: fulfil wood pasture guidelines in
Higher Level Stewardship agreement.
Achieved by: grazing current wood pasture
areas; looking after stock & adhering to
guidelines concerning supplementary
feeding etc.
Target: expand the area currently grazed
to create a pastoral landscape across
Burnham Beeches.
Achieved by: implementing the actions
outlined in ‘Restoring the Pastoral
Landscape at Burnham Beeches’; reviewing
success via grazing impact assessments.
4 objectives & actions - Conservation
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