Transcript Nature reserve design

Nature reserve
design
Peter Shaw
USR
Introduction
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My qualifications for giving this
lecture?
6
months as warden of Rostherne
mere NNR, Cheshire
 3 years organising a conservation
group at CERL, Leatherhead.
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Aims for today:
 to
introduce the basic ideas and
themes of reserve design and
management
 to identify some of the practicalities
to be faced.
Step 1: WHY?
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The first stage in planning a nature reserve is
to identify its purpose. This is not as trivial as
it may seem:
Protect unknown species (rainforest biosphere
reserves)
 Protect a nationally scarce species (bitterns,
avocets at Minsmere).
 Protect a habitat (lowland heath at Headley
heath)
 Protect a local population (Globe flower wood
in Yorkshire)
 Educate kids (Tilbury power station nature
trail)
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Stage 2: Find your warden!
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A reserve needs a warden.
His/her job is to know the site
intimately, to guard records of site
history and gather new data.
It also involves means planning
and running the site management
There is a great deal of people
management - from shooing off
trespassers to showing visitors
around and giving talks in the
evenings. Keep out the vandals
without annoying the locals!
Involve the locals!
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This is a potential issue in the UK, but has been a serious
problem in many tropical ex-colonial countries.
The issue is epitomised in Africa, where parks/reserves meant
areas in which white people told the real locals how they
could/could not use their land. Without goodwill, conservation
will not work.
In Costa Rica the policy is that park wardens must be locals this involves locals in park policy. (It probably helps that Costa
Rica has no large valuable game animals).
At a lower level, it is always worth taking the time to keep local
people informed of developments or plans.
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Dilemma: In 1997 a yew plantation was cut down on Box hill for
timber. In its place a new yew plantation was created – baby
yews + many species of chalk downland plants. The locals knew
nothing about this until felling started – and would certainly have
stopped the work had they known in advance. Was the council
correct?
Pere David’s deer
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This odd animal is close to the common ancestor of deer and
goats. It only survived in the deer park of the Chinese
emperor.
Peasants who trespassed in the park were liable to execution
- good protection you may think. No! In the Boxer rebellion
(1919) the emperor was overthrown, and all deer in the park
eaten. The species is only alive thanks to pere David
Armand, who previously took a few animals back to Europe.
Management plans
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The definitive document concerning the management of
any nature reserve is known as the Management Plan.
This is usually a fat document, always the bane of a
warden’s life!
There are a variety of different, tightly-prescribed formats,
but all have certain common features:
site information: geology, habitat composition, management
history, soil profile, hydrology etc.
 Biological records: bird populations, plant surveys, fungal
forays etc.
 Legal constraints: footpaths cannot be blocked, common
land may not be fenced off, shooting rights be be separate
from land ownership.
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And future plans..
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The management plan also needs –
oddly enough – plans for the
management of the site.
These plans will extend well into the
future, typically 5-20 years.
I want to spend a while exploring the
types of management that might be
considered, and some of the theory
behind it.
Three sections:
People management
 Habitat Management
 Underlying ecological theory.
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People management:
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People are a nuisance! At the same time they are the
raison d’être of a reserve (supplying the money to
maintain it, directly or indirectly), and they are the
most dangerous and damaging creatures on the site!
The site needs secure boundaries, and the entrance
needs some sort of introduction: Laminated signs for
un-staffed sites, grading up to palatial visitor centres
such as the WWT centres.
The visitor centre at WWT
Slimbridge
Paths
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You need to control people – keep them
to designated paths if at all possible.
(Even in huge areas of wilderness like
the high Pennines, visitor pressure is a
nuisance).
Keep a good surface on paths – boggy
bits expand sideways! Have at least
some paths accessible for wheel-chairs.
Maybe have a nature trail, with
numbered posts and a guide pamphlet.
Do they need to get close? At Rostherne
mere the closest access was 400m
away, but the hide commanded such a
good view of the lake and had such a
powerful telescope that this was fine.
(We had the woods to ourselves).
Protect the habitat from
the people!
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Willow logs can surface wet paths.
Paths lead to hides – anything from a garden shed
upwards. These effectively isolate humans from
the birds/animals they are watching.
Screens can prevent shy birds from seeing people
on exposed sections of paths – especially useful
close to hides.
A hide for all ages
Dogs are a nuisance!
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Sorry dog lovers all..
On a nature reserve, virtually everything
that dogs do is undesirable – notably
chasing animals (from deer to lizards),
disturbing ground-nesting birds, and
fouling the soil. Where possible it’s
guide-dogs only, but on common land
this cannot be enforced.
Headley heath has 600 dogs per day,
most leaving from one car park.
Wimbledon Common has packs of 40
dogs, brought taken from all over London
by professional dog walkers. (Is now 6
dogs:1 handler)
Protect people from the
habitat!
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The prospect of litigation drives many
site managers to play safe in all safetyrelated matters.
Keep paths clear. Fence off any
potentially dangerous cliffs or water
bodies. Assume crass stupidity to be a
characteristic of all visitors! (And
remember that kids drown quietly).
Bempton cliffs had to fence off one of
their better puffin-viewing platforms,as
there were suspicions about the cliff’s
safety.
Features to add in:
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Depends greatly on the site. For pristine
sites, biosphere reserves etc the best
thing to do is probably nothing at all.
Most UK reserves include newly-created
or modified habitats, which can act as
visitor foci as well as adding to
biodiversity.
Ponds – with a dipping platform?
 Scrapes – for waders, overlooked by
hides.
 Nestboxes – benefit mammals too
 Wildflower meadows – check your notes!
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More violent management:
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Reserves often need to control animals.
This is a euphemism for killing them.
In 1979 Rostherne had a team who spent
the summer putting cymag down rabbit
holes, gassing them. (Now banned I
believe). We also had long-netting
sessions at night. Foxes can be pests.
Passions run deep about killing birds: Gulls
can be serious egg predators. Canada
geese ruin vegetation on lakes in summer.
Egg pricking may be preferred to shooting.
Kestrels at Minsmere took to feeding on
chicks of little tern Sterna albifrons (world
population <3000). Plans to shoot the
kestrels led to mass resignations from the
RSPB – compromise was to put out trays
of dead mice for the kestrels.
More on killing animals
The extreme case concerns a reserve for native Astralian
animals, run by John Walmsey (“The only good cat is a flat
one”).
He excludes european fauna to conserve Bettongias, wallabies,
platypus. Local eco-vandals took to throwing live cats over
his fence, so he now has a double fence around the reserve,
with spacing between the two fences greater than an Aussie
can wang a cat!
When we consider remote islands, I’ll have more to say on killing
animals.
Underlying ecological theory:
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It is possible to invoke standard
ecological theories to predict how
best to design nature reserves.
The extent to which these theories
work is still being assessed..
Features we can consider:
reserve geometry
 successional management
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Geometry
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S
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A
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Bigger sites have more species, by a wellknown relationship describing how species
richness on islands scales with island size:
S = C Az
S = Species richness
C = a constant for a given system
A = area
z = a scaling constant, typically 0.1-0.35
This means 10* area = 2* species
(roughly).
But what if you have the choice of one large or several
smaller reserves? This is known as the SLOSS debate
(Single Large Or Several Small), and is usually won by one
large site – especially for conserving large predators.
Shape? Connectedness?
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Often you simply buy what you can, but if there is a choice
you should aim to optomise the site geometry.
Consider edge effects – good or bad? (Good for UK
insects, bad for deep rainforest species).
Connectedness is always good
Better
Worse
Successional management
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This has been mentioned before,
but we can now generalise it.
It is often essential to manage a
succession to preserve a species
or habitat. Managing for latesuccessionals is easy – wait!
The problem comes with early-mid
successional species. Here you
have to re-set the succession,
usually by heavy machinery.
Examples of seral
stages:
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Heather on heaths – needs regular mowing/ disturbance.
Coppicing in woodlands to maintain a habitat mosaic.
Natterjack toads are replaced by common toads.
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The hydrosere:
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Open water
Reed bed
Carr woodland
Willow scrub
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Reedbeds matter – far
more
than
lakes!
Reed beds are nesting habitats for some of our rarest
birds: bitterns and bearded tits. (Also rails, crakes,
harriers..).
To maintain them involves controlling the water table and
the succession – particularly willow scrub.
Summary – golden rules
for reserve management
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Know your site (in time as well as
space)
Aim for diversity of habitats
If there has been a constant
management regime for many
years – keep it up!
Don’t be afraid to reset a
succession.
Always worry about people!