England: Countryside Stewardship: Facilitation Fund 2017

The Countryside Stewardship (CS) facilitation fund has just opened for business.  Based on my experience of running an Objective 5b scheme in the Forest of Bowland in the late 1990s, I am a keen supporter of the role of a facilitator to bring people together and increase the impact of grant funding.  

I have included a bullet point summary of the main points but the website has links to more detailed guidance.

The fund aims to "support people and organisations that bring farmers, foresters, and other land managers together to improve the local natural environment at a landscape scale. This landscape scale approach can cover land under existing agri-environment and forestry/woodland agreements, common land and land not currently covered by a scheme. It builds on the principles of partnership working to deliver environmental benefits, as demonstrated by various initiatives, including farm clusters and the farmer-led Nature Improvement Area."

"Funding will be awarded to successful applications through a competitive process. Priority will be given to approaches which show partnership and a collective approach across holdings to deliver shared environmental outcomes that go beyond what could be delivered by individual holdings acting in isolation."

Details:

• A holding is all the land managed by an applicant in England for agricultural and/or woodland activities. 
• Where that holding or property is made up of geographically dispersed production or management units across England these can be entered separately. 
• To qualify for funding, the group will have to undertake activities that are new to them as a result of cooperating.
• The members of the group will need to manage an area which is sufficient in size to deliver Countryside Stewardship priorities set out in the statements of priorities for the area and that is at least 2,000 hectares (ha).  This threshold represents the size of the holdings, not the size of the area(s) of management activity. 
• The area of land must be spread over a minimum of four adjoining, or largely adjoining, separate land holdings managed by different people 
• A common is treated as one holding for the purpose of this funding and can join with non-commons to create the land area of the group. 
• Applications will be scored against selection criteria, and those with the highest scores will be offered agreements subject to available budgets.
• The maximum funding for a facilitator is dependent on the number of holdings involved in the group and the work that the facilitator does. With 4 holdings a facilitator could receive up to £12,000 per annum, which comprises £500 per holding and up to £10,000 for costs of delivering the cooperation. 
• Agreement length: 3 years. 
• Application deadline: 14 November 2017. 

Upland Stakeholders Forum and the Upland Outcomes Approach

I attended the meeting of the Upland Stakeholder Forum (USF) in London, last week. 

The remit of this cross-sector group is to consider upland issues in England, and after some updates, the focus of the meeting was on the Outcomes Approach that is being rolled out by Natural England (NE).  

This initiative was the subject of the five workshops that I ran for NE in different parts of the English Uplands in March, this year, and the Summary Report that I produced for NE is available to download. I also reported on these workshops in the Trust’s Annual Report, this year.

What is the Outcomes Approach?  In simple terms, it involves Natural England working more closely with stakeholders to achieve an agreed, shared vision for land, including the uplands. Flexibility is part of the concept so that a ‘one size fits all’ approach will be avoided. 

For this Approach to achieve its potential it needs to be adopted fully by NE and all stakeholders. During the meeting, the Moorland Association confirmed that the Approach has been promoted to its members and NE outlined how they have been working to introduce the concept to its staff; they recognise that it will require a bit of a culture shift. 

I am a great supporter of this initiative, which I think offers benefits for NE, stakeholders and above all, the English uplands. In my view, it is long overdue, and I am keen to support the roll out of the Approach. I would like to see more demonstration events being held, as part of the promotion process, as I believe that the ‘talk & walk’ style of event is a powerful way to communicate with NE stakeholders and staff  alike.

Wednesday: London - Upland Stakeholder Meeting

This was a day that I got some train miles under my belt.  The first leg was Dumfries to London and this was followed by catching the sleeper to Aviemore.

The draw of London was the Upland Stakeholder Forum meeting that is run by Defra.  It has been going about three years and is getting into its stride.  The role that is developing for this Forum is to provide a strategic framework for all upland issues.  However, the Group highlighted that the most important function for Defra is to show leadership and give direction to the discussions about the many and varied upland issues.

Lord de Mauley, the Defra Minister attended part of the meeting to hear at first hand about some of the issues.

We discussed the formation of the Uplands Alliance, and how a reformed Best Practice Burning Group might relate to the USF as a Best practice Group to represent the views and experience of practitioners.  The Group also discussed the proposal for Defra to facilitate a large application for LIFE funds (~£100m) to deliver improvements in peatland management across the UK over a 10 year period.  I am impressed by the scale of this thinking and it is exactly the sort of work that Defra should be tackling to show leadership.

The Forum also allows an opportunity for members to share ideas and news of up and coming events.  Topics included CAP Reform, the Defra sponsored Hen Harrier initiative, and Natural England's Upland Outcomes Framework.  Some of this falls well short of being riveting but the Forum provides a useful opportunity to air this sort of information.

Tuesday: Bog-athon Cumbria

Today was not an ideal day for this, but a hardy team assembled above Mosedale on the east side of the Lake District to take on the worst that the weather could throw at us. In this area, the blanket peat sits on top of the fell and that was where we had to go.  The photo says it all!

This was the final planned Bog-athon visit.  The visits have served to move debate forward and demonstrate that, correctly applied, the Outcomes Approach being introduced by Natural England has value. It is a way of thinking, not a solution in itself, and involves in reaching a consensus about to objectives for the management of the area.  Extending the coverage to include Exmoor and the Lake District was well worth the effort.  If nothing else, these last two visits have served to emphasise how parts of the uplands can be so different, and how a 'one size fits all' approach to their management is a complete non-starter.

Today, grazing was the only management available, or required, for the area of (very wet) deep peat that we looked at, but it must be recognised that it is a delicate balance to maintain the appropriate levels of grazing while providing the farms with enough income to survive.  Also, it was clear that large commons require a large amount of staff input from Natural England to get them into grant schemes and then support the scheme through its life.  The Outcomes Approach that has been at the core of Bog-athon maybe desirable, but there is a question mark over whether NE has the resources to implement it fully.  

Friday: Bog-Athon Exmoor

What, no heather?

Much though the term 'Bog-athon' is overused, it is the easiest way to describe the purpose of the visit to Exmoor, last Friday.  The aim was to bring a moor in the south-west England, into the Bog-athon process, and link to the other work that was carried out in June.

Bog-Athon is a manifestation of the new engagement process being adopted by Natural England.  This provides for early consultation with the owners and managers of the land and is a much healthier process. I welcome this change and wish to encourage this development.  This is why I was happy to travel to Exmoor and take part in the visit with Natural England.  I was also able to use the is it to catch up on the progress of the Graze the Moor project on Molland Moor, that I am running.

During the visit we looked at the peatland restoration work being carried out as part of the Mires Project and discussed other management work.  It served as a reminder that the balance of upland issues is different on Exmoor in the south-west.  We were also able to brief members of the Moorland Initiative Board of the Exmoor National Park Authority in the afternoon.

For Peat's Sake RSPB - join the party

It will not have escaped the attention of anyone, with an interest in the uplands and access to the Internet, that there have been some acrimonious public exchanges in the last couple of weeks.  The debate has been hotting up around moorland management and raptor persecution. Due to my preference to present positive management issues, this is not an area that the Heather Trust strays into very often, but on this occasion I have been drawn to comment.

For those who want to follow the debate the exchanges are available on the websites - see the RSPB letter, and the Moorland Association reply.

My view of this sort of exchange is that achieves very little apart from a deepening of the trenches from which the bricks are launched, and the birds that the RSPB seeks to protect are the most likely losers from this continuing trench warfare. I do not deny that the land management community needs to get its house in order, but an approach that risks the alienation of every landowner, land manager, gamekeeper and farmer cannot be the best way of making progress. Management may not be perfect, but the owners and managers of land are the only people who can make a difference. We need to encourage a spirit of cooperation, not alienation, and work together.  With a bit of compromise, there is the potential to deliver lasting benefits for all interest groups.

The bog-athon visits described in the previous post illustrate what can be achieved from a little consensus building. This approach may not increase membership numbers or produce column inches in the same way, but in my view it is much more likely to produce lasting benefits for the upland areas and species that we all work to protect and enhance. The bog-athon has started a process, which has the RSPB at its core, that is capable of delivering real progress.

High Peak - damaged peatland

It is extremely confusing and frustrating that on return from a positive meeting of the burning group, I was met by another missive from the RSPB that seeks to ban burning in the Peak District ‘For Peat’s Sake Stop the Burn’.  This promotes a very different and negative message to that coming out of the bog-athon process.  There is a challenge in the Peak District to repair the damage of the past, but we will achieve little by heated exchange.

Perhaps the RSPB needs to get its house in order and decide what it really wants to achieve.  Then the organisation needs to be realistic about how best to do this.  I would be delighted to to support them where our interests overlap (which would be in many places) but the mixed messages coming out of the organisation at the moment make this difficult, or even impossible.

Come on RSPB - it is time to get off your high horse and join the party.  A united moorland management industry could achieve great things.

Recent Activity 2: Defra and the NE Upland Evidence Review

Rather later than anticipated, here is the promised update following the meeting of Defra's Upland Stakeholder Forum (USF) at the beginning of May.  I have developed this to include a summary of the recent developments with Natural England's Upland Evidence Review and Upland Guidance Refresh, which form part of the work of the USF.  This post also encompasses some comment about the input from the Best Practice Burning Group.  This interlinking may appear to complicate matters, but it is significant.  We must not attempt to consider issues in isolation, especially when they are so  important.  Nature works in a joined up way, with much interdependency between the different systems, and if we want to understand and engage with what is going on, we must work in the same way.

What follows is lengthy and involved.  I fear that a casual reader of these words may already be confused and turned off, but if you have an interest in the English uplands, I would encourage you to wade through this.  It is complicated, but it is also important for the future of these areas.

Defra Upland Stakeholder Forum meeting

The Defra Upland Stakeholder Forum meeting was held in London on Thursday afternoon, 1^st May.  Briefings were provided about the New Environmental Land Management Scheme (NELMS), and the thinking behind the moorland uplift (the increase in the CAP payment for farmers on moorland), but a lot of the discussion took place around Natural England’s ‘evidence to advice’ phase coming out of the Upland Evidence Review that concluded in May 2013.  In the all pervasive corporate speak, this work operates under the title of the Upland Guidance Refresh.  There is support for much of the output from this work, but part of the guidance from the ‘restoration of blanket bog’ and the ‘effects of managed burning’ topics, which has been considered together, has proved to be contentious.  During the meeting, Natural England expressed regret about the way that some of the guidance had been published, with some justification, and this was gratefully acknowledged.

The Upland Evidence Review and the Upland Guidance Refresh

To refresh memories, reports from all the review topics were published on 30 May 2013 (see the NE website) and the five topics covered by the Upland Evidence Review (UER) were:

▪       The impacts of tracks on the integrity and hydrological function of blanket peat;

▪       Restoration of degraded blanket bog;

▪       The effects of managed burning on upland peatland biodiversity, carbon and water;

▪       Upland hay meadows: what management regimes maintain the diversity of meadow flora and populations of breeding birds; and

▪       Moorland grazing and stocking rates.

As part of the next ‘evidence to advice’ phase, the Uplands Guidance Refresh, three levels of guidance are being produced:

• Tier 1: Quick Start guidance – the approach, processes and systems that Natural England staff will use in the uplands, which is relevant to all uplands casework;
•  Tier 2: Upland Principles – summary guidance to provide a non-technical summary for each of the five topics to be used by Natural England Staff; and
•  Tier 3: Upland Practitioner - detailed guidance to provide more technical guidance for all five topics, along with links to further information and technical reports, where appropriate.

The Tier 2 guidance for the burning and peatland restoration topics covered by the UER has been combined into one document and this was published in draft in time for consideration at the first meeting Best Practice Burning Group this year, on 11 February.  The guidance came in for heavy criticism and it made for an ‘interesting’ meeting!  For my sins, I had been asked to chair this meeting, which gave me little chance to express my own concerns, but it was clear that there was little, if any, support for this Tier 2 guidance.

As part of the stakeholder engagement process of the Upland Guidance Refresh, with the Moorland Association, Yorkshire Water and the RSPB, I had already been invited to attend a further meeting with Natural England, during the week after the Burning Group meeting.  This gave me an opportunity to express the Trust’s views fully.  This small group met again on 17 April to visit a moor at the north end of Nidderdale and it was during this visit that a better understanding between the various factions started to emerge. 

The Best Practice Burning Group next met on 30 April and this was a site visit in Coverdale.  Here the Burning Group was shown a grouse moor that was being managed sensitively for peatland re-wetting while still producing grouse.  More progress!

It is not all bad news.  Natural England has expressed a genuine desire to get the UGR guidance right and the message could be worked with, but the form of the initial Tier 2 guidance about burning and restoration was bound to cause offence to owners and managers of moorland and lead to alienation.  It had started from the wrong direction. 

There is widespread acceptance that management of deep peat needs to be more sensitive to the needs of these areas, but a complete ban on burning is not the answer.  The social and economic interests associated with peatland areas must be taken into account and other impacts must be considered.  A large, negative impact on grouse production would remove a vast amount of investment into these areas, and the loss of burning as a tool could lead to a large increase in food for wildfires.

I am not proposing that the messages coming out of our increasing knowledge, understanding and appreciation of peatlands are ignored, far from it.  However, I cannot accept that a ban on burning is the panacea for all ills, as it is often presented.  A much more intelligent, joined-up approach is required that reflects everyone’s interests.  The value of our uplands, moorlands and peatlands to provide natural services (ecosystem services) is being recognised and this is of benefit to all of us.  However, our regulators must learn to work with the owners and managers of land and to do this some compromise is required.  Everyone cannot have everything they would like.

Working together with compromise and understanding will achieve much more in the longer term than short term initiatives imposed against the grain of current upland management tradition.

Where to Next?

1.  The Upland Guidance Refresh.

Currently, the Tier 2 guidance for the burning & restoration topics has been mothballed and the development of the Tier 3 guidance is being planned using a more collaborative process.  This will allow stakeholders to have some input to the development of the guidance rather than being presented with Natural England’s solution to comment on.  This is a move towards proper consultation which will be mush more effective!

I will be part of a sub-group of the Burning Group to help with the development of the Tier 3 guidance.  I will be working alongside the Moorland Association, the RSPB, Yorkshire Water, the National Gamekeepers Organisation and a grouse moor manager.  This will involve several site visits to different parts of the English uplands so that we can feed a range of different conditions into the guidance.

Assuming we can achieve some balanced acceptable guidance at the Tier 3 level, the hope is that the Tier 2 guidance can be re-visited and revised in the light of agreement about Tier 3.

2. The Upland Evidence Review - Phase 2

In the meantime the UER has moved on and phase 2 is considering new topics:

• Heather beetle (we are not doing this, but we will be fascinated by what is produced)
• Habitat restoration (initially a wide search to identify priority habitats for detailed review).
• Wind turbines and bats (onshore)
• Wind turbines and birds (offshore)

3.  User Testing
Earlier in the year I was asked to organise four events to take place in March across England to test the guidance coming out of the Upland Guidance Refresh process.  It was decided that the guidance was not ready for testing and the events were postponed.

I believe passionately that discussion with a cross-sector group, while standing in 'the purple stuff', is an invaluable tool in the effort to raise understanding of upland management issues and how they interrelate.  I very much hope that we can return to run these events, later in the year.

4. Other Initiatives

There is plenty else going on in England, and I will report on additional topics as time is available.  These include:

• The formation of an Uplands Alliance;
•  The development of the National Centre for the Uplands at Newton Rigg College, Penrith;
• The development of a Peatland Carbon Code to provide a route for private sector funding into peatland restoration;
•  The work of the England & Wales Wildfire Forum.

Upland Guidance Events for Natural England

These events have been postponed.

We had been asked by Natural England to set up four events in March & April to 'user test' the draft upland guidance coming out of the Upland Evidence Review.  The events would also have considered the recent Moorland Infrastructure Guidance and also the work that has been developing a Better Outcomes approach within Natural England.

As a result of the uncertainties surrounding the guidance, particularly in relation to burning and restoration (see the earlier post), a decision was taken to postpone the events to allow more time for the guidance to be developed fully, so that the detailed Practitioner Guidance can be included in the scope of the events.

The events had been planned at Whitfield, Northumberland; Spaunton, North York Moors; Moscar, Peak District; and Dartmoor Forest.  I am grateful to those who kindly agreed to host these events and I am sorry that it was not possible to complete the process.

I maintain that the type of 'talk & walk' events organised for a diverse range of delegates are incredibly valuable and that we should do more of them.  This style of event provides an opportunity for people to hear and gain an understanding of the views of other people, and gets all of us out of the silos of our normal thinking.  The added attraction of taking everyone out onto an area of hill, fell or moorland is a further, valuable feature that mixes people up and places the discussion in context; these areas look different when removed from PowerPoint.

With our independent, UK-wide overview, the Trust is uniquely placed to run these events well.  I will continue to advocate that we are missing opportunities by not getting people together in this way more often.

A Review of Natural England's Upland Evidence Review

The first phase of Natural England’s Upland Evidence Review was completed at the end of May, last year, with the publication of the five topic reports that covered:

• Tracks on blanket peat
• Restoration of blanket bog
• The effects of managed burning on upland peatland
• Upland hay meadows
• Moorland grazing and stocking rates

Full details and downloads are available from the Natural England website.

On behalf of the Trust, I supported the Upland Evidence Review by contributing to the production of the Tracks report, and I am also a member of the Defra Upland Stakeholders Forum, which has had a role overseeing the Review.  

As a result of this involvement, I have seen the draft internal guidance that Natural England is now producing.  This next phase of the work is the ‘evidence to advice’ phase that is developing the evidence established in the five topic reviews into guidance that Natural England can give to its staff when dealing with land management issues.  Note that this is internal advice for Natural England staff and is not advice for the owners and managers of land.

The internal guidance is being developed at three levels:

• Quick start – things to think about
• Upland Principles – summary guidance
• Upland Practitioner – detailed guidance 

The quick start guidance provides context and I have no issue with this.  The Upland Principles have been drafted in four sections, as the burning and restoration topics have been addressed in one paper.  I am happy with the approach that has been adopted for three of the papers but I have difficulty with the burning and restoration paper.

The burning and restoration paper was published after the other three and was circulated for discussion at the meeting of the Best Practice Burning Group, last month.  The late circulation of this report and its contents was bound to produce some fireworks, and we were not disappointed.  The challenge was that I found myself as Chairman of the meeting and had the task of producing a coherent response to the paper from the meeting.

The week following the Burning Group meeting I was treated to another review of the Upland Principles papers at a meeting with Natural England in Newcastle.  This was part of the stakeholder engagement process and the Moorland Association and the RSPB joined me.  Again the main bone of contention was the burning and restoration paper.

We were also given an insight into the development of the Upland Practitioner detailed guidance and a sensible approach seems to have been adopted to this.

So what are the sticking points with the process, the development of the Upland Principles guidance and the burning and restoration paper in particular?

I am not content that effective stakeholder engagement has taken place.  I have been privileged to be invited to attend several meetings and the Upland Stakeholders Forum has been briefed by Natural England.  However, I am not convinced that the feedback that has been provided from these meetings and briefings has been acted on.  There is a feeling that this process has been window dressing and box ticking, rather than meaningful engagement.  On many occasions, I have been presented with the Natural England solution to the issue in a paper a few days before a meeting and asked to comment on it.  This does not feel like a two-way, engagement process to me and appears to be more focused on obtaining external validation to the views that Natural England want to express anyway.

The burning and restoration paper has several 'red line' issues that relate to a stated objective of stopping burning on blanket bog.  I am fully supportive of the principle that burning should only take place where it is going to achieve benefit and that peatland is a sensitive area where burning may not be appropriate.  However, in my view the statements in this draft guidance go beyond the evidence, and I cannot support this as it is drafted.  I believe it to have approached the issues from the wrong direction: it has started highlighting where conflict exists whereas it would make much more sense to me to establish positions of agreement and work from these. The direction of travel set out in this paper can be supported, but the presentation and the final objective goes too far and appears to be aimed at alienating the managers of peatland.  If this is its aim, it has been effective.

I would like to finish this rather lengthy post on a positive note:

• I fully support the Upland Evidence Review process;
• Natural England have tackled a difficult job effectively;
• The 'evidence to advice' phase is a critical part of the process if it is to have long-term value;
• Much of what has been produced is very valuable; and
• People with knowledge and experience to enhance that available within Natural England stand ready to help develop the guidance.

The message to Natural England is several fold:

• Help is available but it must be harnessed into the process that develops the guidance, not kept at arms length;
• Presenting the solution is not stakeholder engagement;
• Genuine engagement with stakeholders to achieve partnership working is the only way that we can make progress;
• Any drive that exists within Natural England to influence the nature of the advice, regardless of the evidence, must be resisted; and
• All the review documents in the world will achieve nothing unless there is appropriate action on the ground; this requires support and understanding from the managers of the land.

A final thought: it has been muted that there are groups of landowners in Northern England who might on their own initiative be willing to work together to deliver multiple objectives across a large area of land.  What a revelation this could be! Such a group would be able to achieve far more overnight than the current system, with all its expensively produced guidance, could ever achieve.  If Natural England wants to provide long-term, lasting benefits for the uplands of England, ways to support such an approach should be sought.

Natural England might have to sacrifice some control but the benefit to the land, to the communities and the diversity of species could be enormous.

Maybe that is what this is all meant to be about. 

Events for Natural England

As part of Natural England's Upland Delivery Review, I have been asked to run four events, from Northumberland to Dartmoor, during March 2014.

The events will follow a talk & walk format that will include a scene-setting, indoor session followed by a visit to an area of moorland to discuss the issues in a practical setting.  The aim will be to give people a chance to hear about the thoughts emerging from the review and to provide Natural England with some feedback about the changes that are proposed in their dealings with upland stakeholders.

I am delighted to be doing this, and I will be bringing some independent, Heather Trust thinking to the events to make sure that there is a lively debate around all the issues.  The first events will be starting in March and attendance will be by invitation, but by all means let me know if you would like to be involved.

Natural England - Uplands Evidence Review

The five reports from the NE Uplands Evidence Review have been published and the next phase to translate the evidence into advice has already started.  This second phase is arguably the most interesting and the aim is for this to be completed by the end of the year.  

I plan to work engage with other organisations to help develop the guidance that flows from these reviews.  It is an ideal opportunity for the industry to help Natural England develop guidance that will be appropriate and relevant to the management of the English moorlands and uplands.

The next tranche of Evidence Reviews are being planned.  I am delighted that heather beetle is likely to be one of the topics. Naturally, I would like to think that the Trust's interest has been instrumental in getting this topic included in the next round of reviews, but the most important fact is that the heather beetle threat will be recognised and treated with respect.

Natural England has circulated the following letter about the topic reports:

Natural England has been undertaking a review of Uplands Evidence and we are now ready to publish our findings. The review programme has gone through a detailed assurance process and been reviewed by Natural England’s Science Advisory Committee. This is the first of Natural England’s evidence reviews and it addresses 5 topics which were identified with stakeholder input. It reflects on areas of advice that are subject to challenge and looks at what could make a difference on the ground. The review programme forms an integral part of the Upland Delivery Review programme and follows the principles embedded in our Uplands Strategic Standard published in September 2012.

The publication includes the methodology and the assurance process as well as the five topic reviews.
The five topics were:

• The impact of tracks on the integrity and hydrological function of blanket bog
• Restoration of degraded blanket bog
• The effects of managed burning on upland peatland biodiversity, carbon and water
• Upland hay meadows: what management regimes maintain the diversity of meadow flora and populations of breeding birds
• Moorland grazing & stocking rates

The review programme provides us with the ability to refer to the evidence underpinning the management advice we provide to our customers, some of the areas discussed were:

• How tracks affect the structure of blanket peat and its hydrological system.
• Is a full recovery to a functioning blanket bog possible?
• What happens after the burning of blanket bog and wet heath, how are the habitat species affected?
• What type and quantity of fertiliser can be applied to upland hay meadows without a negative impact on species diversity?
• The moorland grazing & stocking rate topic has been documented it is notable however that very little (approximately 20%) of the evidence can be considered as ‘strong’ - does one size fits all?

It must be emphasised that these are just some of the discussion subjects and that the full reviews are much more detailed.

Natural England will now spend the next two months evaluating the need for amendment to the guidance we provide to our advisers. We will be consulting with you in the summer on any proposals for changes, but if you have any suggestions in the meantime please do not hesitate to contact us NE Uplands Evidence Review mailbox. Any changes agreed will be incorporated in revised guidance in the autumn, with a view to completion by the end of the year.

In future all guidance used by our staff will be made available on our internet.

Yours sincerely


Tim Hill, Chief Scientist 

Ian Fugler, Director Land Management, North & Uplands

Natural England: Upland Evidence Review

The Upland Evidence Review organised by Natural England has been considering five topics:

• The impacts of tracks on the integrity and hydrological function of blanket peat
• Restoration of degraded blanket bog
• The effects of managed burning on upland peatland biodiversity, carbon and water
• Upland Hay Meadows: What management regimes maintain the diversity of meadow flora and populations of breeding birds?
• Impact of moorland grazing and stocking rates

These are pretty meaty topics and it is clear that Natural England, and everyone who has supported the process, has been amazed by the amount of work involved.  I have been part of the Review Group that considered tracks, and I feel that I got off lightly when compared with the amount of work involved with some of the other topics.

I attended a workshop in York, yesterday, which was the first opportunity for Natural England to present the reports to those who have contributed to them. Some are nearly complete (the Tracks report is in this category!) but others still need a lot of work.

I was heartened by the approach that is being adopted. There was talk about  the need for: an integrated approach to upland management, flexibility, matching prescriptions to the needs of the land and there was an acceptance that some of the advice that has been provided by NE in the past may not have been supported by evidence. These are difficult steps for any organisation to make, and Natural England are to be commended for even considering them.

For me, the next steps are the most interesting: taking the findings from the Review Reports and feeding them into a review of Natural England's advice and policy.  This is when the effort that has gone into preparing the reports will start to make a difference on the ground. We should not forget that this is what matters and where the effort will be judged.

The process to feed the Reports into Advice & Policy will be taking place through 2013 and I will be watching closely, while supporting the work, to see what changes are introduced.  This will involve a different team within Natural England and meanwhile the Evidence Team will be working on the next round of Evidence Reviews.  There is even talk of including a review of heather beetle!  Watch this space!

Natural England’s Uplands Evidence Review

The Uplands Evidence Review has been running for several months and is now drawing to a close. The Natural England website has all the details, but in summary, five topics were chosen to be reviewed: tracks on peatland, burning impact of burning on peatland, upland hay meadows, sustainable stocking regimes and restoring degraded blanket bog.

I have been contributing to the review of tracks, and I was pleased that this was one of the lighter topics. Even so, there seemed to be no shortage of scientific papers to be reviewed, while producing the review group's report.  Our report has been sent to the Assurance Group, who will be reviewing all the reports, prior to submitting them to Natural England.

The process is due to complete by the end of March.  Natural England is running a workshop in York on 26 March, which I will be attending.  During the workshop, Natural England will present the five reports and invite comment.

This has been a massive project, and I suspect that the amount of work involved has exceeded everybody's expectations. However, it will be a very useful resource, but in many ways, I will be more interested in the next phase.

This will consider the current policy and guidance within Natural England and compare this with the findings of the five topic reports, including the knowledge gaps that have been identified. Consideration will then be given to whether changes to current policy and/or advice will be required.

The process to date has been academic, but once this phase is completed, the review of policy and advice may start to have an impact on the management of the uplands. I will provide some feedback, through this blog, after the meeting on 26 March.

Dartmoor - Pilot scheme for upland farmers

See the report from This is South Devon about a pilot scheme on Dartmoor that is giving farmers more say in how the land is managed.  It appears to be gathering speed and gaining support.

Natural England - Uplands Delivery Review

This is the text of a letter I have received from Ian Fugler, Director Uplands at Natural England, that outlines the state of play with the Uplands Delivery Review.  I am pleased to be assisting with this process through Defra's Upland Stakeholder Forum and as part of the Evidence Review Group for Tracks.  

For those with concerns about the Evidence Review, note the final paragraph of the letter: there will be opportunity to provide your thoughts on how the Evidence Review feeds into the development of the advice that Natural England provides after completion of the review process, early next year.

Natural England

Mail Hub Block B

Whittington Road

Worcester

WR5 2LQ

Dear Simon

PROGRESS WITH THE UPLANDS DELIVERY REVIEW

I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with a short update on progress Natural England has been making on its work in the uplands. I want to make sure Natural England strengthens working relationships with those who own and actively manage the uplands and make sure they, and other key stakeholders, have a good understanding of the role government has given us in delivering its aims in the uplands.

Through Defra’s Upland Stakeholder Forum we are consulting Government and key stakeholders about a wide range of our uplands work. I hope this will help improve the way we work with others in the uplands and provide clarity about our role and remit, about the outcomes we are seeking and about the evidence we will use; alongside investment in our relationships with key partners and stakeholders and in the capabilities and resources of our staff.

We have just recently published our Upland Strategic Standard which aims to ensure our upland customers and partners know that our decision-making and the advice we give is consistent, even if outcomes may differ and provide them with a good quality service, from confident, skilled advisors and specialists who know what they are doing for the natural environment and why. A copy of the document is available at http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/uplands/background.aspx .

More specifically stakeholders have provided us with a list of key concerns they have about the way we work currently. For example they told us that they feel the administrative burden of gaining consent for all works, however small, on grouse moors is unnecessarily high. In response we took a proposal to Defra’s Upland Stakeholder Forum to develop a suite of products including a revised ‘Moorland Management Plan’ approach which would allow all works to be proposed and consented in a single document. This proposal received conditional support from stakeholders on the group and we are developing it further with Defra and stakeholders. We will make sure Defra are made aware of the other issues raised by stakeholders and use the Forum to ensure resolution is achieved in transparent and consultative way.

Regarding the Uplands Evidence Review we want our stakeholders to be confident that we make sound, evidence-based decisions and operate robust and transparent processes. We are collating, reviewing and identifying any gaps in the evidence we hold on the effect of burning on peat, feasibility of restoring degraded blanket bog; the effects of track construction on moorland; livestock management and stocking rates and hay meadow management. The response from stakeholders has been very encouraging; we have received over 150 references from 18 separate organisations and interested individuals. These references, combined with the 1760 references uncovered by our librarians across the Tracks, Burning and Restoration topics and the 2500 across our Hay Meadows and Grazing topics, means that we are starting to build a significant body of evidence to review. We are currently screening the references that have been collected to date. Between now and Christmas, there will be an intense period of activity as the review groups whose membership includes independent academic appointments consider the evidence and produce their reports. These reports will then be considered by the overall Assurance Group and we plan to publish the results of the review in spring 2013.

We are also making excellent progress on stepping up our staff training to ensure that all our people are better able to deliver clear, high quality advice to our customers which is consistent with our standards. We are working with the Foundation for Common Land to train 60 conservation professionals each year in practical aspects of hill farm management. Business in the Community are funding the scheme which will be delivered by trained farmers at Newton Rigg College, Cumbria and the Duchy College in Cornwall with pilot schemes running this autumn and full roll-out next year. We will also make sure that the findings of the evidence review are fed in to our ongoing staff training programme so that our advice continues to reflect our standards.

In early 2013 we will need to consider any implications of this work for the development of our advice, together with practical, social and economic factors, and we hope that you will want to be involved at that stage. I will write to you again around that time to provide more detail on this. In the meantime please contact Alice Kimpton on the details above if you have any questions, suggestions or concerns.

Yours sincerely

Ian Fugler

Director, Land Management North and Uplands

Natural England - Review of Upland Evidence

In view of my involvement with the tracks topic that forms part of this review, I thought it worthwhile providing a summary of the what is involved.  This is a rather wordier post than normal ones, but I hope it is informative.  The Natural England website has even more detail!

The key point is that I am supporting phase one only, at this stage.  This will be reviewing evidence not changing guidance or policy.  Phase 2 might be more interesting to those involved directly in management issues.

Reasons for the review:

·      An increase in scrutiny of the uplands - want to ensure stakeholder confidence

·      To make sound evidence-based decisions

·      Operate robust and transparent processes

·      Ensure compliance with environmental standards

Phase 1

This phase reviews current evidence and evidence standards including:

·      quality assurance;

·      relevance of evidence and appropriateness of analysis;

·      conclusions drawn;

·      clarity of communications and consistency of advice to customers and stakeholders.

 It will:

·      Identify and consider all relevant evidence

·      Identify gaps

·      Consider the effect of defined activities

·      Draw conclusions based on available evidence (including recommendations for future research)

It will not:

·      consider other relevant information such as socio-economic factors

·      recommend changes in management practices or operational guidance

Topics to be covered include:

·      Effects of tracks/vehicles on soil structure and hydrology, and their effects on biodiversity.

·      Effects of managed burning on peatland biodiversity and ecosystem services

·      Appropriate management regimes for sustaining biodiversity and upland hay meadows.

·      Determination of environmentally sustainable stocking regimes for moorland.

·      Feasibility of restoring degraded blanket bog including areas such as drainage, vegetation cover (peat forming species) and climate change.

Phase 2 

This phase has not yet been defined but will look at possible changes in advice provision for each of the topics,

Review Process

Evidence Review groups

·      will evaluate outputs from the evidence review, draw evidence conclusions, and summarise these.

·      Each group includes two expert  members on the topic being covered.

·      Timing: 14 September – 5 October

Assurance Review group 

·      will comprise a chair and two independent specialists who will check the soundness of  the topic reviews and their conclusions.

·      The Group will report  to the Natural England Science Advisory Committee (NESAC).

·      Timing: 5 – 26 October

Stakeholder Workshops

Natural England plans to hold a series of workshops to discuss initial findings for each topic in November 2012 and to publish a report in December.