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Grassland

More than any other habitat, grasslands define the British countryside, accounting for over 35% of the land cover. They are home to some of our most cherished and charismatic wild flowers.

Orchids, gentians and waxcap fungi, to name just a few, depend on grassland for their survival. Together, these and other plants form the foundation of this habitat, providing the essential support for a great variety of insect and animal life.

Within this, there is huge variety, influenced by a host of environmental variables including latitude, altitude, geology and water availability. Sadly however, the biodiversity value of the great majority has been drastically eroded. Changes in land use and advances in farming practice have been historically at the heart of this. Today, however, the situation is more complicated: combinations of overgrazing, nutrient enrichment, abandonment of land, habitat fragmentation and climate change are increasingly driving the harmful changes we see.

Nevertheless, vestiges of a wild flower rich countryside can still be found: the chalk downs of southern England, the magnificent lowland meadows of Wales, and the unique coastal machair of Scotland still retain a wealth of charismatic species. But even here, there are places where the quality of habitat has been degraded through poor land management practices.

Key issues

Sadly the biodiversity value of the majority of our grasslands has been drastically eroded. Changes in land use and advances in farming practice have been historically at the heart of this. Today, however, the situation is more complicated. Combinations of overgrazing, nutrient enrichment, abandonment of land, habitat fragmentation and climate change are increasingly driving the harmful changes we see.

In the Plantlife report – ‘England’s green unpleasant land?’ – we charted the decline of England’s grassland and used fresh evidence from the 1980s and 1990s to show losses were still occurring and in some cases accelerating. Here are some of the shocking statistics:

• 75% of Worcestershire’s unimproved grassland were destroyed or damaged over a 25 year period.
• Shropshire suffered a 49% loss of grassland over 10 years.
• Counties already bereft of unimproved grassland – such as Lincolnshire and Warwickshire – were perhaps the most worrying. Here, an annual loss of even 1 to 2 % simply could not be sustained.

Plantlife has since carried out an analysis of our most threatened (red listed) and near threatened wild plants. This shows that just over a quarter of wild plants of both acid and chalk/limestone grasslands are red listed. For neutral grasslands the figure is less severe, but still over 10%.

Every county in the UK is losing, on average, one species of wild plant every two years. Many of these are grassland species. For example, in Northamptonshire over 90 species of wild plant have gone extinct since 1930, over a third of which are grassland species. Beyond the hot-spots, wild flower (so-called unimproved) grassland has been whittled away until all that remains are tiny islands – scraps on road verges, village greens and small fields. Their isolation prevents plants and most animals moving between them, so if a plant or animal species is lost from one island, it becomes difficult or impossible for that species to return. Multiply this effect across Britain’s landscape and the extinction of species within counties or even countries becomes a stark reality.

What we are doing about it

One of Plantlife’s key aims is to restore and sustain grasslands before populations of rare species are lost. We do this through offering advice on a number of different fronts and by helping landowners obtain conservation grants to the benefit of both wild plants and other wildlife.

Grazing is all about using the right animals at the right time and in the right number to produce healthy grassland habitats. When the right balance is achieved, there are benefits for both wildlife and livestock. There is growing evidence that livestock raised on low-input, species-rich pasture is of significantly higher quality than that raised on artificially fertilized monocultures of ryegrass and clover.

The evolution of grasslands is closely allied to our own. The cycle of woodland clearance and grassland development through long-term grazing or cutting have ancient origins. Today, grassland nature reserves and wildlife sites owe their existence to such continuous management. Without this, scrub invades, woodland develops and eventually their special biodiversity dies out. Sadly, this occurs all too often. Plantlife directly intervenes at neglected sites to halt the decline of rare wild plants and their habitats.

Grasslands will not escape the adverse impacts of climate change. Changes to seasonal cycles of temperature, rain and water availability are likely to have an increasing influence. Plantlife is taking an adaptive approach and will modify management regimes and our advice accordingly. We are also devoting more time and resources into our Important Plant Area (IPA) programme which provides a holistic landscape scale strategy to benefit all forms of wild plant and their habitats. We will link up isolated fragments of habitat, allowing species populations to expand. Where possible we will also create buffer strips to mitigate soil enrichment from agricultural run-off and arrest the spread of invasive species.