News

Long Term Effectiveness of Environmental Stewardship in Conserving Upland Hay Meadows in The Pennine Dales

PAA’s report presenting the findings of a survey of 103 upland hay meadows now under HLS management has just been published as part of Natural England’s Commissioned Report series. Natural England’s Project Manager was Dr Andrew Cooke. The report is available as a free download from the Natural England website: www.publications.naturalengland.org.uk

Despite the idyllic pictures, the surveys were undertaken by a team of intrepid and dedicated PAA botanists and one subcontractor, Henry Adams, during the extremely wet summer of 2012.

The project aimed to asses and compare the selected meadows’ condition and evaluate changes since previous surveys. Once data analysis was complete, it was found that very few of the meadows contained the highest quality MG3b community, but a high proportion were semi-improved communities of conservation interest. Of those meadows that had been monitored previously, there was some evidence that the best sites originally had experienced slight declines in quality, while meadows in poorer initial condition showed slight improvement.

It is likely that a combination of factors is driving change in upland hay meadow communities including nutrient addition, grazing and cutting regimes and climate as well as active restoration.

PAA offer a full range of consultant expertise relating to vegetation surveys and upland environments – please contact us for more information, or feel free to download one of our relevant fliers below:

Vegetation Survey and Assessment
Ecological Survey and Evaluation
Moor & Heathland
Peatland Survey & Evaluation