Management of Natural Landscapes - L3 Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is the Agriculture Act 2020?
The Act implemented numerous changes, but most prominently begun the transition period away from area based payments under BPS, towards the ELM scheme, whereby farmers and landowners would be paid to manage land in environmentally friendly ways.
What are the BPS reductions in payments?
In an effort to gradually taper down BPS payments as the new schemes take affect, this year we have seen a 50% deduction in payments. Following the Budget last week, we now know that BPS payments are going to be reduced by 76% next year, with a cap at the first £30,000 of reference data, so the max payment will be £7,200.
Can you name some non-statutory designations?
Green Belt
Community Forests
RSPB reserves
Can you name some statutory designations?
National Parks
SSSI
National Landscape
Special Areas of Conservation
Special Protection Areas
What is a SSSI?
A Site of Special Scientific Interest are areas of land and water that has specific wildlife, geology or landform in which it wishes to protect. Natural are the governing body and are in charge of designating sites, and monitoring other sites.
What are some of the typical management requirements of SSSI’s?
Each have their own, which are named on designated sites system. Typical restrictions include grazing certain animals at certain times of the year, managing woodland, managing scrub and controlling water levels. Some management tasks require Natural England Consent.
What is a National Park?
Conserve the environment.
What is the difference between a National Park and a National Landscape?
Very similar in the sense that they are designed to protect the nationally significant landscape, but only National Parks have their own planning authority.
Can you explain to me what the requirements are of Low input grassland options under SFI?
Aim is create a varied sward height, with flowering grasses into the late summer.
Do not plough, cultivate or reseed.
Limit poaching
Restricted to 12 tonnes of FYM or equivalent amounts of fertiliser
Mechanical operations should not disturb ground nesting birds
£151 per ha
Can you tell me what the payment rates were for the two hedgerow options under SFI 2023?
HRW2 = £13 per 100m (one side)
HRW3 = £10 per 100m (both sides)
What are the management restrictions for the managing hedgerows option and what is the aim?
Cut incrementally either once every 2 or 3 years.
This is to create different widths and heights of hedgerows that support a varying range of farmland birds and wildlife.
What are the key features of BAP Woodpasture and Parkland Priority Habitat?
Sporadic ancient / large standalone trees or in clusters.
The presence of grazing animals, which controls scrub to maintain a semi-open habitat.
Open grassland or heathland
What are Priority Habitats and where do they originate from?
As part of the Biodiversity Action Plan which was published in 1994 calling for development and enforcement of national strategies to identify, conserve and protect existing biological diversity and enhance it where possible.
How did you decide that the wood pasture was in a good condition?
I consulted the habitat description and concluded that the parkland met with all of the distinguishing factors. My client had been actively maintaining the parkland in recent years so there was ongoing maintenance.
What was the payment rate for WD4?
£212 per ha
What were the requirements of WD4?
Protect existing trees from livestock damage
Establish and maintain a variety of sward height by grazing and/or cutting
Harrowing, ploughing, rolling, cultivating etc was prohibited
No application of fertilisers
No supplementary feeding
Control and cut scrub
You state that adding fencing to the Mid-Tier agreement added to the competitiveness, how did it?
Competitiveness is scored based on environmental improvements and value for money.
The fencing showed that the client was committed to managing the parkland in line with the actions requirements, by grazing it adequately.
How state that you completed an SFI application for an arable farm, what options did you recommend that didn’t clash with their CSS agreement?
There existing CSS agreement incorporated some low input grassland and an extensive number of grass buffer strips.
As they were a large arable enterprise, I recommended the soil testing, nutrient reporting and integrated pest management actions as these were things they were already implementing.
To break the arable rotations, multi-species winter cover crop was utilised.
Winter bird food on arable land was utilised in some areas that were not producing high yields or odd corners of arable fields that were not efficient.
You mention SHINE features, can you describe what these are and what impact did they have your recommendations for the arable SFI?
SHINE stands for Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England and shows where there are historic or archaeological features on land which need to be protected.
Under SFI 2023, you could not apply ‘take field corners out of management’.
HER consent was required for those fields with SHINE features on them, where soil samples needed to be taken.
What is Common Land?
Usually privately owned land, to which others may have specific rights over. Natural England govern Common Land and consent must be gained prior to doing some things such as fencing it. There are also strict restrictions on development of common land.
What legislation gave the public the right to roam over common land?
Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000
What was the payment rate and requirements of GS6?
£646 per ha
Only applicable on a certain list of priority habitat inventory species
The land would be cut and/or grazed to promote varied sward height and 4 high value plans typical for that priority grassland habitat.
Scrub and bare ground is to be managed.
No mechanical operations that disturb breeding birds.
No supplementary feeding, except mineral blocks
No fertiliser
No ploughing cultivating or re-seeding.
Recommended that the field is left ungrazed for 7 weeks before cutting, and that the aftermath is grazed.
How could the client gain up to 100% of costs for the waterfall project under FiPL?
As the project offered no commercial benefit to my client, and was merely in the interest of the landscape, then 100% funding was available. Should there have been a commercial element in the project, funding is capped at 40%.
What are the consequences of your client not meeting the requirements of their ELS/HLS?
Fines, non-payment or ceasing of the agreement.
