Practical Nature Reserve Management

It is a common mis-conception that wildlife areas need little or no management.  That wildlife will "look after itself".  However this is not actually true on most sites.  The wildlife we have in this country has lived along side humans for a long time and has adapted to fit in with human activities such as farming and forestry.. Modern intensive agricultural and horticultural management can often be very detrimental to wildlife but more traditional management can actually be crucial to the conservation of many species and habitats.

For example many woodland flowers thrive best in woodland where the canopy is opened up by coppicing allowing light to reach the ground.  Wildflower meadows require grazing or cutting to prevent their loss to scrub encroachment. 

Nature reserves and wildlife sites, like all open spaces, require management -everything from litter clearance, keeping the paths open and cutting the grass through to specialist ecological work such as coppicing and meadow management. CEL are able to take on most types of practical management on nature reserves, wildlife areas and other wildlife sites, including:

 

• Woodland management
• Grassland management
• Pond and wetland management
• Hedgerows
• Nature gardens