| How
Does the Impact of Grazing on Heathland Compare with the Impact
of Burning, Cutting or No Management? |
What is the aim
of the review?
To ascertain:
• How the impacts of grazing on heathland compare with the impacts of burning,
cutting or no management?
• The effect of timing, extent, frequency, severity, and nature of grazing, cutting or
burning on their relative impacts?
Who's in the review team?
At what stage is the review?
This review has now been completed.
What is the rationale?
Lowland heathland is a priority habitat for nature conservation throughout north-west
Europe. One of the most important causes of the loss of heathland habitat has been a
widespread decline in ‘traditional’ use of heathlands, which included light grazing,
controlled burning and cutting of vegetation for use as fuel and animal fodder. As a
result, many heathlands have reverted to scrub or woodland through a process of
natural succession.
Current management responses to this problem include the use of
fire, cutting of vegetation and reintroduction of grazing. Although reviews and
guidelines for the management of lowland heath exist, few attempts have been made
to compare grazing with alternative management approaches, such as cutting or
burning. This highlights the need for a critical review of the evidence, to identify the
conditions under which grazing is likely to be most effective as a management
approach, and to determine the relative impacts of grazing compared to alternative
management interventions.
How were
the results obtained?
A number of electronic databases were searched for information
using a range of search terms. Internet searches were
conducted in order to retrieve any relevant grey literature.
In addition, the bibliographies of relevant articles were
examined for useful references. 3431 references were identified
through the search strategy; 13 of these were accepted
into the final meta-analysis and 144 were included for qualitative scoring.
What
did the review find?
To read more about this review, its findings, and the implications for conservationists and researchers, please see the Summary or Full Report.
Comments?
If you would like to comment on any aspect of this review, please email us. Your feedback is appreciated.
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