Managing Cannock Chase

Without conservation grazing we believe that it will be impossible for the wetland valleys to ever achieve favourable condition and highly unlikely that the dry heathland or wood pasture will achieve favourable condition. Grazing could be replicated using small machinery and/or using hand tools if money, including staff resources, was unlimited, but this is unrealistic and also unsustainable. Realistically, and in the face of future uncertainties about funding for conservation land management, once established and supported, conservation grazing is the most sustainable management over the long term.

In relation to the presence of the bilberry disease Phytophthora pseudosyringae across many parts of Cannock Chase, Natural England believes that the consequences of not grazing the habitats at Cannock Chase, as detailed above, are greater than the increased risk of spreading the disease across the site.

In addition to the challenges of usual heathland management, there is also the challenge of future-proofing our heaths in the face of climate change and air pollution, both of which are affecting Cannock Chase now. For plants and animals to cope with the changing climate the habitats they rely on need to be in their best/most ecologically-robust condition.

Heathlands are a nutrient-poor environment and the plants and animals that live there are adapted to living in it. Air pollution contains nutrients such as ammonia that drives changes in the vegetation by fertilising the heathland so that species that can exploit more nutrients such as grasses, quickly start to dominate over less competitive plants such as wildflowers and bog mosses. Conservation grazing animals would help to remove nutrients from the heathland by grazing vegetation and although they also add nutrients back to the heath, the system is a closed circle.

Conservation grazing is not a ‘quick fix’ and its effects would not be immediately apparent. Realistically it could take several years to perfect the grazing regime. Also, other management practices would still be needed such as bracken and scrub control and bare ground creation, but over time, as the effects of grazing become apparent through monitoring, bracken and scrub control might be needed less. There is evidence from other sites that cattle grazing can help to restore steep, dense bracken slopes to a heathy vegetation over time through a combination of trampling, lying up in it, breaking up the dead bracken litter and spreading heather seeds into it from their coats, as well as browsing grasses within the bracken here and there, although they do not preferentially eat bracken.

Best Practice from other areas using conservation grazing

Many lowland heaths in the UK and Europe are managed by conservation grazing animals. Some local examples are the Connecting Cannock Chase heathland corridors between Gospel End and Brindley Heath created by the Forestry Commission, Hednesford Hills Local Nature Reserve, Chasewater Country Park, Sutton Park National Nature Reserve, and Barlaston Common. In the wider West Midlands conservation grazing is used to manage heathland sites such as Wetley Moor, The Roaches, Kinver Edge, Brown Moss, Stiperstones National Nature Reserve, Devil’s Spittleful, Hartlebury Common and Pound Green, part of the Wyre Forest National Nature Reserve in Worcestershire managed by Natural England and the Forestry Commission. There are many other protected sites with similar habitats to Cannock Chase across the country, such as the Ashdown Forest where cattle grazing is used as a key management tool to move sites into favourable condition.

We advise that a conservation herd of cattle is used to graze Cannock Chase SSSI. Ideally, there would be a combination of animals such as cattle, sheep and ponies, which all graze in different ways so in combination would produce an even more diverse structure to the heathland vegetation. Given the high level of use by the public for various activities however, the most appropriate animal that would deliver the best grazing is cattle. Conservation cattle grazing on heathland is not the same as cattle grazing in a pasture on a farm. Stocking levels need to be much lower than on farmland, about 15% of the level grazed on lowland farmland, and over much larger areas.

Cattle grazing is used on numerous nature conservation sites across the country with the aim of restoring habitats to a good condition so that they are beneficial to wildlife. Many of these sites are accessible to the public; indeed public access is encouraged.

We advised the Council to include as much of Cannock Chase SSSI as possible within the grazing consultation to achieve the maximum benefit from a new conservation grazing regime; this should include both the wetland valleys, Oldacre and the Sher Brook, as well as the ancient wood pasture at Brocton Coppice.

Knowledge of how best to manage habitats comes from years of ecological research and experience from across the UK and in Europe where sites face the same management issues. The following details some of this research to show how grazing can be beneficial to heathland species.