Memorandum submitted by the Deer Initiative
(N12)
INTRODUCTION
The Deer Initiative (DI) is a wide partnership
of statutory, non-statutory, voluntary and private interests.
Whilst originally set up by the Forestry Commission and still,
in the main, funded by the Forestry Commission and English Nature,
it has a core staff whose activities are both to co-ordinate the
relevant activities of the partners and to deliver some functions
directly.
The aim of the DI is "to ensure the
delivery of a sustainable, well managed wild deer population in
England". The staff and finances of the DI are managed
through the DI Ltd, a charitable company limited by guarantee,
dedicated to supporting the DI. This response reflects the views
of the staff of the DI, our partner organizations will respond
separately.
We are pleased to have been given the opportunity
to offer our comments on this very important issue.
The terms of reference of the inquiry are:
"The Committee will examine progress
made towards achieving Defra's Public Service Agreement (PSA)
target that by 2010 95% of all nationally important wildlife sites
should be in `favourable condition'. It will examine the role
played by various agencies in meeting the target, including especially
English Nature and local authorities, and will determine what
changes are needed to ensure that the target will be met."
General Comments
The recent announcement that the management
of nearly 61% of SSSIs was meeting the PSA target (ie it was either
in favourable condition or unfavourable recovering) was encouraging
but still implies that more needs to be done if the target is
to be met.
For woodland SSSIs high deer numbers continue
to pose risks to re-growth on restored coppice stools, natural
regeneration of woody species and the rich ground flora.
We would also like to highlight the fact that
the management of SSSIs to a high standard is sometimes reliant
on factors beyond the boundary of the holding and over which the
manager may have little or no control. This emphasizes the need
for collaborative deer management to take place on a landscape
scale.
Defining the Condition of SSSIs
One of the major problems highlighted in recent
awareness seminars, is the lack of knowledge as to what criteria
or factors are used in the definition of the five condition classifications
or what proportion of an SSSI unit would have to be in poor condition
for its classification to be detrimentally affected. This lack
of clarity is not restricted to landowners but was also expressed
by EN staff responsible for monitoring and classifying sites.
It could be that some generally well managed sites are not contributing
to the achievement of the PSA target because a minority of the
area is not meeting its conservation objectives.
It is clear that not all land managers agree
with the judgments of English Nature over the effects of particular
levels of grazing particularly in parklands and the uplands and
some question whether the requirements for favourable condition
are appropriate to the site or achievable.
Incentives for Positive Management
We are currently working with EN to on a local
scheme in the West Midlands which aims to offer a positive incentive
to landowners to effectively manage wild deer to achieve conservation
benefit. The initial indications are that this project will enhance
the deer management capability in the area and facilitate more
efficient management at a landscape scale. We believe that this
type of positive partnership approach is essential if we are to
reduce the impact of wild deer on our woodland SSSIs.
Provision of Advice
Land owners and managers need to be made aware
of the value of SSSIs and how it can be maintained and enhanced
through their management. We are already working in partnership
with both English Nature and Forestry Commission staff and where
possible landowners and managers, to provide the necessary knowledge
to recognize and minimize deer impacts. Unfortunately in practice
there are constraints on this partnership fulfilling its potential.
Land managers prefer to have long standing relationships with
advisers they can trust and this is particularly true for deer
management which is often regarded as being of a very sensitive
nature.
Priority Issues Affecting Favourable Condition
It is clear that wild deer are having significant
negative impacts on many woodland SSSIs though we recognize that
in many wood-pastures they play a critical and very positive role
in helping to maintain the open conditions characteristic of this
habitat. Various rare and threatened species benefit, directly
or indirectly. We do not therefore want to eliminate deer and
deer browsing from the landscape either nationally or regionally—they
are a natural part of woodland systems.
However we do need to bring them more into balance
with the communities and species that we value now—most
of which developed in a cultural landscape in which deer were
rare or absent (Rackham 1986). It is naïve to expect that
we can conserve such habitats and species without also managing
deer numbers in the landscape as a whole.
Therefore we may fail to meet many biodiversity
plan targets if we do not, over the next few years, bring about
effective, landscape-scale deer management.
15 March 2004
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