Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2006/January 2007 | Page 59

COUNTRYSIDE & FARMING

The gardens are
open from 11am
– 5.30pm Sunday to
Thursday until 29th

the extent of heath in
Hampshire and Dorset,
Luccombe Down, with
its acid soils, is one of
the more extensive areas of heath on the Island.
The National Trust is currently involved with
an ongoing programme of heath restoration
using these New Forest ponies as grazers – or in
other words, as a ‘management tool’. The ponies
are particularly suited to grazing heath because
they can maintain good condition on fairly poor
grazing and they help eat some of the woody
vegetation like gorse and bramble which would
otherwise restrict the growth of heather. They
can be seen carefully nibbling the tips of gorse
bushes particularly in the winter for the nutrients
they contain. They will usually only graze heather
if they are really short of food which is why the
wardens supplement their feed with hay in the
winter. This also makes it easier for the ponies to

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be rounded up when some are taken back to the
mainland or when they need checking over.
The aim of the National Trust’s heath restoration
programme is to provide a habitat with a mixture
of open heather and grassy areas, scattered gorse
and thorn bushes and banks of bracken and
bluebells, fringed by woodland or farmland. This
restores a beautiful landscape for people to enjoy
and provides an excellent range of habitats for
wildlife.
A naturally friendly breed, the ponies soon
overcome their natural shyness to accept food
from the hand. However the National Trust is
keen to discourage this practice as the ponies are
wild animals and can become a nuisance if they
begin to associate walkers with food.

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