May 2020 BBC Wildlife 23
Stoborough Heath: Graham Hunt/Alamy; marsh gentian: AGAMI Photo Agency/Alamy; Dartford warbler: Guy Rogers/rspb-images.comFINDOUTMORE
DorsetAONB
bit.ly/3c1pOoLThe UK’s rst ‘super’
national nature reserve
is created in Dorset
Landowners have joined forces to bring together
11 essential wildlife habitats on the Isle of Purbeck.HABITATT
he bare statistics do not do justice
to the enterprise as a whole – seven
organisations collaborating to create a
‘super reserve’ of 3,300ha, which is home
to 5,000 species of invertebrates.
This is what’s happened on the Isle of
Purbeck, the peninsula shielding Poole
Harbour in south Dorset. It is Britain’s most
important lowland heathland site, one of
the few areas in Britain where all six native
reptiles can be found, and home to rare birds
such as Dartford warblers and woodlarks.
Here, conservation groups such as
the National Trust and RSPB, and the
Government’s wildlife agency Natural
England, have been working for more than
50 years to conserve what’s left of this
precious habitat.
The creation of the Purbeck
Heaths National Nature Reserve,
according to the RSPB’s
Dorset reserves manager
Peter Robertson, is in part a
celebration of the achievements
of the last half century. “The
RSPB first bought land here
in 1965 – 200ha of what is
now Arne,” he says. “Now
it’s 900ha.”
Joining various
estates
together
into one
reserve will allowconservationists to take a more hands-off
approach to managing the land. The RSPB
and National Trust, for example, will take
down fences between their reserves to allow
livestock to wander freely – in the process,
creating habitat where insects can thrive.
Robertson gives the example of the rare
Purbeck mason wasp, which needs tiny
bare patches of sand and clay in which to
breed. Until now, these were created by
volunteers with spades, but – with a larger
area to play with – they can now allow
cattle to do the same job.
David Brown, property ecologist for
the National Trust’s Purbeck Estate, says
traditional conservation management tends to
be highly prescriptive because they are often
dealing with such small areas. Now they can
take more risks. “We can let some of
the semi-natural processes back into
the landscape to allow it to function
naturally again,” he says.
Over time, the coalition of
groups also want to create a more
coherent strategy for managing
the annual 2.5 million tourists to
Purbeck, so they get the most out
of their visit to one of Britain’s most
precious wildlife landscapes.
James Fair