A report of an eight week Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pastoral freshwater wetlands that are subjected to high winter water levels need grazing to maintain the enormous diversity of wildlife they support. The problem is that wet grassland utilisation is opportunistic, dependant on the weather, and modern farm businesses generally prefer to work with more reliable pastures unless offered some kind of incentive or support. There seem to be similar problems across Europe.
Europe’s pastoral wetlands, including the Somerset Levels and Moors, provide an important network for migratory birds used for wintering, breeding or feeding while travelling between wintering and breeding grounds. As such, many sites are now protected under European Law.
Having enjoyed working with farmers in Somerset for five years; I was able to undertake an eight-week study tour, visiting wetlands in France, Holland and Poland during Summer 2003, funded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust . My interest was the approaches taken by other European government agencies and land managers in their efforts to conserve wetlands.
France uses agri-environment payments similar to those used in the UK in order to support farmers who manage wet grasslands. The farm businesses that I visited were generally small mixed units of around 100 animals, with part dairy and part beef. With farmers over 60 years of age unable to claim subsidies there were many more young farmers and local breeds and closed herds were generally favoured. Whilst there was some concern regarding parasites such as fluke there was no concern regarding toxicity of weed species such as marsh ragwort. Rushes and reeds are often controlled by topping, sometimes twice in a season.
The Dutch government have had a policy of purchasing very wet grassland areas in order to pass them to both non-governmental and governmental organisations whose primary objective is wildlife conservation. Evidence suggests that these organisations have been very successful in managing wildlife sites. However, many farmers are still involved in grazing and haying conservation lands under licence and value the land for two key reasons. Firstly they believe that the hay makes an important “animal health” supplement to high protein and silage feed systems. Secondly, the land is required for a farm extensification system that is based on balancing Nitrate inputs and outputs across the whole farm. Farmed wet grassland areas are well guttered and rushes and reeds are controlled by regular topping. Dutch farmers feel that they could be more involved in managing important wildlife sites and in some area they are lobbying to this effect.
The creation of Oostvaardersplassen , a 6000 hectare wetland reserve where the grassland is maintained entirely by closed herds of large wild herbivores is an incredible achievement. The site is now grazed by approximately 700 Heck cattle, 700 Konik Ponies and 1000 Red Deer. There is minimum intervention at the site and no feeding: animals are only culled if they are deemed to be suffering. Strict welfare guidelines have been produced.
Poland has large wild wetlands that have changed significantly since the “state farm” system ended in 1992. Subsidies are limited and abandonment or intensification are problems. The Polish government and farmers are aware that, with accession to the EU next year there comes an opportunity to support managers who farm wetlands to maintain their wildlife interest. However, there is also concern about subsidies encouraging over intensification with limited regulation to protect the environment. Agri-environment schemes are ambitious but in the early stages of development.
For
some more details on what I thought were the most interesting points from my
fellowship please go to the key points and thoughts section.