Assessing the effects of Higher Level Stewardship options on lowland heathlands and its priority species, with a particular focus on grazing effects

Tender description

Evidence Programme Ref 22257 To deliver the following objectives: a) To produce a methodology to determine the extent to which HLS has (a) delivered an improvement in lowland heathland condition; (b) been appropriately targeted. This will be achieved by using a combination of field survey, and comparison with earlier survey material. b) To use the developed methodology on an appropriate sample of HLS agreements on lowland heathlands to assess the most common management options (grazing, cutting, burning and chemical control of bracken/scrub), with particular focus on grazing, and evaluate their success in terms of progress towards, or achievement of Favourable Condition (FC) for the habitat by comparing them with the condition pre-agreement. The sample should ideally include a counterfactual element, to assess management approaches taken without HLS agreement; c) To assess (i) how changes in the attributes and (ii) features required to achieve FC impact on the associated species (e.g. the provision of bare ground results in more populations of solitary wasps). d) To evaluate the overall effectiveness of the HLS scheme thus far for Lowland Heathlands, using the outputs from objectives a, b and c, noting individual successful and unsuccessful interventions and the reasons for them.