10. Case studies 2: Re-wilding the lowlands

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10. Case studies 2Re-wilding the lowlands

• Lecture outline
• Oostvaardersplassen, The Netherlands
• Wicken Fen
• Abbots Hall Farm
• Workshop Summary, QA and exam preparation

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Oostvaarderplassen

• Vision a more natural oostvaardersplassen
• managed as a 'near-natural' reserve a form of
  management was selected in the 1989 Nature Policy
  Plan
• aims to
• facilitate natural processes as far as possible
  and reduce human intervention to a minimum
• free free-ranging, undisturbed herds of red deer,
  Heck cattle and Konik horses
• one of only a few areas in the Netherlands where
  the lead is taken from nature, where there is no
  human direction, and nature takes its course
• can have as yet unknown - positive and negative -
  effects in terms of natural processes and the
  social behaviour of herbivores

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Oostvaardersplassen (contd)

• The site
• 5600ha (inc. 3600ha marshland, 2000ha
  grasslands/roughs) 20km east of Amsterdam
• integrated mosaic of 8 ecological types
  including
• very wet zone (reed beds)
• dry and wet grassland
• open water (shallow lakes/mudflats)
• spontaneously grown woodland (willow, etc.)
• similar ecological landscape to the primeval
  marshes of the estuaries of the big rivers of
  Europe
• a landscape that use to be common along the river
  banks and great deltas covering huge surface
  areas and one which has almost completely
  disappeared from western Europe

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Oostvaardersplassen (contd)

• Existing designations
• European Diploma of Protected Areas
• prestigious international award granted to
  natural and semi-natural areas and landscapes of
  special European importance for the preservation
  of biological, geological and landscape diversity
  
• SAC and SPA
• part of the Natura2000 network
• Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality
  Ecological Network (EHS)

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Oostvaardersplassen (contd)

• History
• 1968 Southern Flevoland polder was reclaimed from
  the Ijsselmeer
• provide an area for agriculture, urban
  development and forestry
• part of this polder was intended to be used as an
  industrial zone
• this area that now constitutes the original 3600
  ha of marshland within the Oostvaardersplassen.
• natural value of the area progressed very rapidly
  and Oostvaardersdiep areadeveloped into a very
  important wetland according to international
  standards
• wetlands and the fauna depends a great deal on
  surrounding area to function properly so original
  wetlands should be bordered by a dry area of
  roughly the same size
• Primitive breeds of large herbivores introduced
  in 1984 including Konik horses and Heck cattle
  (grazers) and red deer (browsers) to control and
  direct succession

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Oostvaardersplassen (contd)

• Ethos
• give maximum scope to natural processes
• free-ranging primitive breeds with wild habits to
  control natural succession
• give nature room and let it grow
• give the floodplain back to the river
• contrary to whole Dutch tradition of
  river/floodplain engineering!
• freedom of access for people
• free recreation
• attractive landscape

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Oostvaardersplassen (contd)

• Scientific basis
• use of large herbivores to control and direct
  succession
• create a park-like landscape mosaic
• successional process
• mix of grass, scrub and trees
• scrub (e.g. Sloe) takes hold in grass and
  prevents grazing
• scrub protects young tree saplings (e.g. oak) and
  allows them to grow
• forest develops and shades out scrub
• tree dies to create new clearing in which grass
  takes hold
• back to 1.

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Oostvaardersplassen (contd)

• Problems and challenges
• lack of large carnivores
• possible problems for herbivore numbers?
• quickly reached carrying capacity but limits of
  available forage have kept numbers within
  carrying capacity through natural selection (use
  of data from Africa as analogue)
• animal welfare problems
• what do about old/injured animals?
• what do with carcasses? (need to bring back large
  carrion e.g. Black Vulture)
• fell foul of local vet laws (need to remove
  carcasses)
• requires change of mind set to see Konik and Heck
  as wild animals

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Wicken Fen

• Vision to secure the future of Cambridgeshires
  fenland wildlife and to re-establish lost
  species
• lowland fen largely drained land for agriculture
  in C16th/C17th by Dutch engineers
• Remaining fragments of old fen (alder carr, sedge
  and reed swamp)
• Wildlife-rich habitat though relying on pumps for
  drainage

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Wicken Fen (contd)

• The site
• 195ha of former farmland owned by the National
  Trust
• 10km northeast of Cambridge
• part of Swaffam Internal Drainage Board
• natural grazing by Konik ponies and Highland
  cattle

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Wicken Fen (contd)

• Existing designations
• National Nature Reserve under the Wildlife and
  Countryside Act 1981.
• Britains best recorded nature reserve
• Site of Special Scientific Interest under the
  Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
• Special Area of Conservation under the EU
  Habitats Directive.
• Wetland protected under the international Ramsar
  Convention

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Wicken Fen (contd)

• History
• October 2000 NT acquires Guinea Hall Farm (115
  acres)
• October 2001 NT buys Burwell Fen Farm for 1.7m
  (supported by Heritage Lottery Fund)
• 2003-date under negotiation to acquire another
  500 acres
• 100 year vision
• acquire up to 3700 ha. of farmland to the south
  of Wicken Fen over the next 100 years thus
  extending the wetland to provide new and exciting
  benefits for people and wildlife
• land is currently owned by around 120 individuals
  and acquisitions can only proceed with their
  approval - the National Trust has no powers of
  compulsory purchase
• envisaged that an access / recreation corridor
  can be set up at the southern end of the reserve
  to join the reserve to the centre of Cambridge
  thus enabling the new area to become the 'green
  lung' for the city

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Wicken Fen (contd)

• Ethos
• Putting wildlife back into the countryside on a
  landscape scale
• Integrating requirements of wildlife with the
  needs of local people, economy and tourism
  holistic approach benefits from biodiversity,
  landscape and general environment

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Wicken Fen (contd)

• Scientific basis
• in order to secure the future of Cambridgeshire's
  fenland flora and fauna and to make viable the
  re-establishment of lost species, it will be
  necessary to think beyond the bounds of the
  existing tiny fragments of wetland
• extending the boundaries of the Fen to make it
  possible to maintain populations of fen flora and
  fauna over a wider area so dissipating the risk
  of individual species extinctions
• making possible migration between populations
  enabling the body of peat, which is the Fenlands
  most precious resource, to begin to grow after
  three centuries of loss

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Wicken Fen (contd)

• Problems and challenges
• complex drainage
• requiring engineering work to restore
• isolated nature of fen (island of wild among
  farming landscape)

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Abbotts Hall Farm

• Vision We must rethink the way we look after
  our coast. We have the vision of a more
  sustainable coastline which is better for
  wildlife and people. We have a great deal of
  research and expertise in our partners and
  Abbotts Hall Farm puts this in to practise so we
  can all see the benefits and really understand
  any of the practical difficulties John Hall,
  Director Essex WT
• managed coastal retreat in face of sea-level rise
• creation of new salt marsh wildlands

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Abbotts Hall Farm (contd)

• The site
• Abbotts Hall Farm, Balckwater Estuary
• 350ha of arable and pasture land
• Example of managed coastal retreat
• Maintain sea defences for farmland in coastal
  areas at increasing cost in face of sea-level
  rise or breach defences and let sea back in to
  create new salt marsh?

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Abbotts Hall Farm (contd)

• Existing designations
• winner of the 2005 RSPB/CIWEM Living Wetlands
  Award
• In Balckwater Estuary SSSI
• SPA
• candidate marine SAC

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Abbotts Hall Farm (contd)

• History
• bought by Essex WT in 2000
• is being managed as a viable farm but with
  emphasis on improving the conditions for wildlife
• part of this work includes a 'managed
  realignment' over 200 acres (84ha) of former
  farmland where breaches in the sea wall took
  place (November 2002)
• rest of farm managed for extensive/light grazing
• creating 115ha of transitional and intertidal
  saltmarsh and mudflat. The proposed sequence of
  habitat restoration on the site is
• new mudflat/saltmarsh
• new coastal grassland
• new saline lagoon
• new reedbed

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Abbotts Hall Farm (contd)

• Ethos
• This scheme solves in one go the problem of
  decreasing space for wildlife, recreation and
  flood waters. It is an excellent example of how
  consultation, imagination and environmental
  objectives can work together for biodiversity and
  the public interest.

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Abbotts Hall Farm (contd)

• Scientific basis
• Managed realignment as one of several 'soft'
  engineering options which may reduce the costs of
  coastal defence (in this case in low-lying areas)
• provide a more 'natural' response to the problem
  of rising sea levels and at the same time deliver
  environmental, specifically nature conservation,
  benefits

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Abbotts Hall Farm (contd)

• Problems and challenges
• generally acceptable where the area of land
  behind the sea wall is already impoverished from
  a nature conservation point of view
• difficulties will arise where the land has a high
  value, possibly as lagoonal or more likely
  traditional coastal grazing marsh. In these
  circumstances consideration will need to be given
  to creating new coastal wet grassland from arable
  or other intensively used agricultural land, if
  the full sequence of habitats is to be
  re-created.
• managed realignment schemes will be subject to a
  number of consents and licenses governed by EA

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Reading

• Colston, A. (1997) Conserving wildlife in a black
  hole. ECOS 18(1), 61-67.
• Pethick, J.S. (2002) Esturarine and tidal wetland
  restoration in the United Kingdom policy versus
  practice. Restoration Ecology, 10, 431-437.
• Taylor, P. (2005) Beyond Conservation a wildland
  strategy. Earthscan. Chapter 5.
• http//oostvaardersplassen.biofaan.nl/scientificcd
  /content.html
• http//www.rlg.nl/english/publications/reports/058
  a.html
• http//www.wicken.org.uk/100y_scoping.htm
• http//www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,130
  26,975224,00.html
• http//www.rspb.org.uk/policy/waterwetlands/living
  wetlands/2005winner.asp
• http//www.english-nature.org.uk/livingwiththesea/
  

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Workshop

• Summary of module
• FAQs
• Exam