Island Life Magazine Ltd October/ November 2012 | Page 80

COUNTRY LIFE

Bugs, botany
and battery:

heathland restoration at Bouldnor Forest
by Richard Grogan, Head of Conservation, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust

Your local
Wildlife Trust
The Hampshire and Isle of
Wight Wildlife Trust works to
create a better future for wildlife
and wild places in Hampshire
and the Island. As the leading
local wildlife conservation
charity, it looks after 57 wildlife
reserves, has 28,000 members
and 1,000 volunteers. The Trust
manages its own land and advises
other landowners how to manage
their land with wildlife in mind.
Staff and volunteers also carry
out surveys and gather data to
monitor how our local wildlife
is doing.

Beechcroft House, Vicarage
Lane, Curdridge, Hampshire
SO32 2DP
Tel: [phone]

www.hwt.org.uk
80

www.visitislandlife.com

Back in the middle ages on the Isle of
Wight, heathland – an open landscape
dominated by heather, gorse and birch
– was common as sheep grazed the
northern plains and downland. The
economy of the Island was heavily
dependent on the wool trade but when
this declined, the heathlands declined
too.
Increasing industrialisation led to a
decline in the pastoral economy with
many leaving the Island to seek their
fortune in the new cities. The decline
in heathland continued with the rapid
advances in farming technologies led to
the improvement of soils for growing
grass. Further declines were brought
about by the planting of trees in the
mid-20th century at Parkhurst, Bouldnor
and Firestone. So by 1850, 82% of
heathland habitat had been lost from
the Island and by 2000 it had dwindled
to a total of 66ha (163 acres). Most of
this was found on National Trust land at
Headon Warren and Luccombe.
Heathland is an important habitat
which is rare in northern Europe but
common in some southern counties
such as Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex.
It contains beautiful creatures such as
Dartford warbler, nightjar, woodlark,
emperor moth, silver-studded blue
butterfly and sand lizard which are all
nationally rare but sadly many are not
found on the Island.
In 2008, the Hampshire and Isle of
Wight Wildlife Trust, the Forestry
Commission and the National Trust

formed a partnership and decided
to undertake a heathland restoration
programme in four sites on the Island.
Ningwood Common, Mottistone Down,
Bouldnor Forest and Brighstone Forest
were chosen to receive funding from
the West Wight Landscape Partnership
to return these areas to heathland. If
successful it would increase the total area
of this habitat on the Island to over 100
ha (250 acres).
Bouldnor Forest was chosen because it
had only been planted in the 1950’s and