Why climate change means management matters more

Many of GWCT’s policy messages relate to the benefits of land management and the need for interventions. Land management and associated practices can support policy outcomes in a variety of areas from carbon sequestration protection to nature recovery, sustainable food production, and economic development.

Whilst I understand why ‘rewilding’ (covering a range of ecosystem restoration approaches) has achieved traction given that many ‘traditional’ conservation approaches are failing to deliver nature recovery, I am concerned that the underlying factors for this failure are not necessarily addressed by rewilding – or the adoption of reduced management. In some circumstances, such as for ground-nesting species, GWCT research identifies that policy focusing on habitat alone is insufficient as a recovery measure as, for these species, predation is an unaddressed limiting factor.

On top of the effects of land use and management change, climate change is driving changes in species abundance and distributions, with novel species now visiting or resident, and some of our native species being driven to higher latitudes or altitudes as their climatic window closes. It is important, therefore, that decisions on conservation policy are made in the context of future climate scenarios and not just on the present.

A recent paper by Mason et al¹ provides some useful insights into the effectiveness of management in conjunction with climate change predictions for moorland bird species. Predictions for population changes based on changes in management alone, showed that the relative abundance of red grouse, curlew and golden plover was positively associated with grouse moor management – reinforcing the message from our own research from the Upland Predation Experiment at Otterburn, back in 2010². Mason et al predicted that numbers of red grouse, curlew and golden plover increased with management intensity in contrast to unmanaged areas, and that red grouse would be predicted to decline by 33.2%, curlew by 10.5% and golden plover 6.1% if grouse moor management were to cease.

The paper’s authors then combined these effects with the projected impacts of climate change on moorland species and predicted that the additive effects of grouse moor management cessation and climate change would lead to stronger declines under all Representative Concentration Pathways, the climate modelling scenarios used to project the potential impact of greenhouse gas levels on climate change. Curlew, a red-listed species of significant conservation concern, were predicted to decline by c. 25-32% by 2040.

This paper corroborates existing work by the GWCT and others^3,4,5 on the importance of moorland management for some species and in particular how reductions in interventions and ultimately loss of management is likely to impact key moorland species such as the mountain hare⁶. The GWCT recently published a paper recording the results of bird surveys on the Upland Predation Experiment project areas in 2018 and 2019, 10 years on from the predator removal experiment⁷. The habitat had not changed but the numbers of predators had increased, whilst the number of ground-nesting waders had declined. For example, golden plover had declined 81% and black grouse were locally extinct, whilst carrion crows had increased 78%, and foxes by 127%. This should not have been a surprise as comparable results were observed for moorland in the Berwyn Mountains in Wales when grouse moor management ceased in the late 1990s⁸; golden plover dropped by 90% and black grouse by 75%, whilst carrion crows increased fivefold.

The Mason et al study also highlights the importance of considering policy measures that might result in management changes in the context of climate change. If policy continues to limit the options land managers have to manage heather through burning (the metric used by the authors to judge grouse moor management intensity) or the management of legally controllable predators, then this paper suggests that this could compromise our ability to deliver on biodiversity targets in respect of moorland birds. This is without adding in the increased risk of wildfire in the spring to ground nesting species and other slow-moving wildlife such as beetles and spiders⁹ due to higher fuel loads.

Managed areas where fuel load is reduced and wildfire impacts are less severe or even prevented, could be important refugia for species recovery. There is also the risk of increased evapotranspiration rates if heather is left unmanaged causing water table drawdown¹⁰. If rewetting aids peatlands resilience to climate change, it seems illogical to limit options to manage the surface vegetation given the likely impact on water tables. Management is necessary in the gap between rewetting techniques being adopted and their success, measured in decades not months or years.

How we address nature’s recovery in the context of climate change is a key question and one that will help to future-proof policy decisions and limit the unintended consequences of making decisions based on the effects of management under the current climate alone.

GWCT is seeking funding to undertake a Future Moors project, in collaboration with the Heather Trust, which will provide quantitative information based on existing GWCT and other datasets about the potential changes to the extent and quality of moorland habitats, species abundance and distributions, and ecosystem service delivery under different future climate and policy trajectories. We hope this will generate important data to inform future upland land use and conservation policy in the UK.

Muirburn photo credit: Laurie Campbell 

References

1. Mason, T. H. E., Littlewood, N., Willis, S. G., Whittingham, M. J. & Willis, S. G. (2025) Predicting the combined impacts of future management and climate change on moorland bird species. Journal of Applied Ecology. 00, 1–13 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70196
2. Fletcher, K et al. (2010) Changes in breeding success and abundance of ground-nesting moorland birds in relation to the experimental deployment of legal predator control. Journal of Applied Ecology. 47, 263–272. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01793.x
3. Tharme, A. P., et al. (2001) The effect of management for red grouse shooting on the population density of breeding birds on heather-dominated moorland. Journal of Applied Ecology, 38(2), 439–457. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2664.2001.00597.x
4. Littlewood, N. A. et al (2019). The influence of different aspects of grouse moorland management on nontarget bird assemblages. Ecology and Evolution, ece3.5613. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5613
5. McMahon BJ, Doyle S, Gray A, Kelly SBA, Redpath SM. (2020) European bird declines: Do we need to rethink approaches to the management of abundant generalist predators? Journal of Applied Ecology. 57:1885–1890. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13695
6. Newey, S. et al. (2024) The distribution of mountain hares and the possible effects of woodland expansion using the Cairngorm National Park as a case study. European Journal of Wildlife Research. 70, 72 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-024-01788-1
7. Baines, D. (2024). Ten years on from a predator removal experiment in the English uplands: Changes in numbers of ground-nesting birds and predators. Journal for Nature Conservation, 126788. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2024.126788
8. Warren, P., & Baines, D. (2014) Changes in the abundance and distribution of upland breeding birds in the Berwyn Special Protection Area, North Wales 1983-2002. Birds in Wales, 11: 32-42.
9. Reid, N., Kelly, R. & Montgomery, W.I. (2023): Impact of wildfires on ecosystems and bird communities on designated areas of blanket bog and heath, Bird Study, DOI: 10.1080/00063657.2023.2240553
10. Heinemeyer, A. (2023) Restoration of heather dominated blanket bog vegetation for biodiversity, carbon storage, greenhouse gas emissions and water regulation: comparing burning to alternative mowing and uncut management : Final 10-year Report to the Project Advisory Group of Peatland-ES-UK. Research Report. University of York, York. https://doi.org/10.15124/yao-2wtg-kb53