Introduction to the guidance manual
19. Management measures and threats
19.1 Pressure – State – Response
Linking recording and reporting management measures to the
condition assessments which form the core of Common Standards
Monitoring enables Agencies to identify whether management and
activities on or adjacent to sites are neutral, advantageous or
deleterious for a particular feature on a specific site.
Comparisons between sites are useful to decide whether it is
necessary to alter site management or influence / control
particular threats, in order to change the state of a feature from
unfavourable to favourable. These will be facilitated by knowledge
of what is working well elsewhere in the site network.
The consideration of what threats and management measures are
occurring on or adjacent to sites is an application of the
pressure, state, response (PSR) model. Threats are considered to be
negative pressures which may be driving features into unfavourable
condition. Condition assessments made under the common standards
model are the state of features at a given point in time.
Management measures are considered to be the responses put in place
to mitigate threats or ensure that state remains in a favourable
condition. It is expected that the assessment of threats and
management measures will be at least in part a field based
exercise, undertaken in parallel with the collection of data to
make the common standards condition assessment.
19.2 Standardised threats
Threats are therefore those things which are driving a feature
into unfavourable state. Threats should be recorded for
each feature. Local needs for information may be
more detailed, but any information collected should be summarised
for reporting purposes into the categories below.
Categories agreed for reporting
purposes:
- Agricultural operations (e.g. ploughing, fertiliser,
pesticides)
- Burning
- Development carried out under planning permission (including
roads, Acts of Parliament etc)
- Dumping / spreading / storage of materials (e.g. spoil
deposition or large bale silage)
- Earth Science feature obscured / removed (e.g. fossil
collecting) / modified (e.g. cave entrances)
- Flood defence or Coastal defence works
- Forestry (including neglect such as lack of coppicing)
- Game or fisheries management (e.g. introduction of stock at too
high a level, over-zealous cutting of river banks, bait
digging)
- Invasive species (including bracken or scrub)
- Lack of remedial management (e.g. stopping-up drains, scrub
cutting, erecting deer fences)
- Over-grazing (including deer browsing)
- Recreation / disturbance (including scrambling, off road
vehicle use, recreation pressure, disturbance of fauna etc)
- Statutory Undertaker (i.e. works carried out by a statutory
body which is not required to seek planning permission, including
military operations)
- Under-grazing
- Water management (including drainage, dredging or alterations
to the water table. Could be too much water or too little)
- Water quality (including silt, water pollution (direct or
diffuse), run-off, nutrient enrichment, eutrophication etc)
- Other (specify: note that this should only be used for threats
which do not fit within the schema; it is expected that the schema
will be reviewed and, if necessary, revised on a regular
basis).
19.3 Management measures
Management Measures are those things which are helping to
achieve favourable condition, either by maintaining the state, or
by encouraging recovery from unfavourable condition. The measures
should be recorded for each feature. If the management of the
feature is successful, the features should be either favourable or
unfavourable recovering. If the features are unfavourable no change
or declining, or worse, partly destroyed, it implies that the
threats on the site are not being mitigated or managed effectively.
This should be a trigger for review of the measures in place, or
the exact prescription(s) agreed under a particular incentive or
scheme.
Reporting management measures on sites:
Which management measures are in place?
- Management agreement / scheme /
- Conservation agency grant
- Enforcement of Site Management prescriptions (e.g. through
nature conservation order)
- Woodland grant scheme
- Agri-environment schemes e.g. Tir Gofal, ESA, Countryside
Stewardship
- Planning condition or agreement
- Other grant (e.g. HLF, LIFE)
- Inheritance Tax / Capital Tax Exemption
- No formal agreement, but management sympathetic (incl.
consents)
- Other (please specify)