Almost 2 million acres of GB grassland lost as woodland and urban areas expand

RSPB, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Plantlife, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and Butterfly Conservation have today expressed concern after Forestry England’s (FE) decision to replant pine trees on precious heathland in Wareham Forest. In the current ecological emergency, they urge FE to begin working with them on a new heathland vision for FE’s estate in Purbeck.

In May 2020, 192 hectares of Wareham Forest was accidentally burnt, much of it a low-value conifer crop grown for timber. The charities had previously pressed FE locally to recognise Wareham Forest as a priority for large-scale heathland restoration. They also asked FE to hold off on automatically replanting the burnt area, pending a ‘root and branch’ review of FE’s Wareham Forest Plan and discussion with the charities about how best to restore the site’s outstanding heathland potential. However, last week, Forestry England went ahead with tree-planting on a large part of the burn area, much to the concern of the wildlife charities.

Dante Munns speaking for RSPB said, “This was an excellent opportunity to expand and link the heathland in Wareham Forest with the Purbeck Heaths National Nature Reserve as part of an extensive nature recovery network. It was a great chance to boost populations of rare birds like Dartford warblers, nightjars and reptiles like sand lizards and smooth snakes. The RSPB and its partners have decades of experience in managing and restoring heathland at places like Arne and Winfrith. Having worked well with FE work to restore large areas of former heathland in Rempstone Forest, we don’t understand why FE rushed ahead with replanting. We’ve already lost so much precious heathland and opportunities like this don’t come along very often. It’s very, very disappointing.”

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Almost 2 million acres of GB grassland lost as woodland and urban areas expand

A major loss of grassland and significant increases in urbanisation and woodland in Great Britain since 1990 have been revealed in a new scientific analysis of land cover changes across the country.

Using high-resolution satellite-derived data, the UK Centre of Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) has calculated the overall net gains and losses in land cover over 25 years in Great Britain between 1990 and 2015. These show:

a net reduction in all types of grassland (both farm use and recreational areas) of 7,668 km2 or 1.9 million acres – greater than the size of Suffolk and Sussex combined
a net increase in woodland area of 5,236 km2 – almost the equivalent of the size of Norfolk – with the majority of this increase in Scotland
a net increase in urban areas of 3,376 km2 – an area almost the size of Cornwall – with the majority in England
a net reduction in arable farmland of 782 km2, with Scotland accounting for almost all this net loss. East Anglia also lost significant amounts of arable land, but there were increases elsewhere in England
2,505km2 of grassland (about the size of Dorset) and 1,121 km2 of arable farmland (almost the size of Bedfordshire) were converted to urban use

Kent had the largest net rise in urban land cover in terms of geographical area (136km2) between 1990 and 2015, while Edinburgh had the largest percentage increase (6 per cent).

Argyll & Bute lost the largest amount of grassland (739 km2) in Great Britain and gained the largest area of woodland (662 km2). This was symptomatic of the significant differences between England and Scotland, which lost a similar total net area of grassland between 1990 and 2015. In England, grassland was largely replaced by urban development, while in Scotland, there was a massive expansion in woodland at the expense of grassland and also arable farmland, with much less urbanisation. In Wales, the picture was more balanced, with a similar increases in urban and woodland cover.