European Union LIFE - Nature Projects on Orford Ness NNR
LIFE 1 - The Conservation of Orford Ness
The LIFE 1 project formed a key part of the pioneering five-year restoration programme on Orford Ness to reconcile past military experimental use with the requirements of nature conservation. The objective was to achieve this while keeping the site in as natural and wild state as practicable.
The principal aim of the Orford Ness project was to begin to restore this extensive but damaged coastal site and to conserve its outstanding physiographic interest; to encourage the breeding of a large number of wild birds (including EU Birds Directive Annex 1 species); and to increase the nature conservation value of its habitats.
Project work included the re-creation and restoration of habitats by using livestock grazing as a management tool; improving water control on the marshes and controlling damaging activities such as illegal access and shooting. It also involved providing winter flooding of the grazing marshes for wildfowl and summer nesting and feeding areas for waders and other ground nesting birds. Another key element was preparing the site for public access after it having been a closed 'secret site' for eighty years.
The results of the actions taken were assessed and fed back into the future management of Orford Ness with the aim of improving the overall management of the Special Protection Area (SPA), which the site has been designated.
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LIFE 2 - WILD NESS The Orford Ness Project: Second Phase
Following the LIFE 1 programme initiated in 1994, a second LIFE project started in 1997 and ran until March 2000. The aim of this project was to build on the work achieved in LIFE 1 and to improve the conservation status of EU Birds Directive Annex 1 species and other vulnerable breeding, overwintering and migratory species. It also aimed to improve the status of habitats for which the site has been included as a candidate in the Special Area for Conservation (SAC) designation.
The work has included studies into factors affecting the breeding success of Annex 1 birds, principally predation, and effects of gull guano on the development of the rare shingle flora. Other work has involved the restoration of further areas of grazing marsh, including some river walls; creating 2 ha of new brackish water coastal lagoons with islands for breeding, feeding and overwintering waders and wildfowl and as increased habitat for the specialist lagoonal fauna found on the site; an experimental restoration of an area of degraded shingle; a continuing survey and monitoring programme and the development of public access and educational resources.
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Examples of the work
Lapwing and Golden Plover seen on the Airfield marshes. Winter flooding of these areas has encouraged large numbers of wintering wildfowl and waders. In conjunction with livestock grazing and installation of water management controls, this work has also provided waders with suitable habitat and the correct conditions to establish feeding and breeding sites. Fifteen to twenty pairs of Lapwing and Redshank breed on these marshes annually.
Avocet wings - all that remains after the bird was predated by a fox while feeding in an adjacent pool. In January 1999 a report was published which investigated the suppression of breeding success of Schedule 1 and Annex 1 birds on Orford Ness due to predation.
National Trust staff with wardens and ecologists from Natuurmonumenten and SMACOPI during a visit to Orford Ness to study the management of the site. This visit reflects part of the on-going partnership between the three organisations that has come out of the LIFE project
Before and after. The creation, in 1997/8, of a new ditch system in the Airfield site. This will provide extra winter freshwater storage (from rainfall) to allow us to keep the marshes wetter for longer into the summer months for the benefit of breeding waders and their chicks. This work also created new habitat suitable for use by wildfowl and waders.
In 1998, under the LIFE 1 project, 2 ha of new coastal brackish lagoons (a priority habitat on Annex 1 of the EU Habitats and Species Directive) were created. These new lagoons will complement the existing ones and help to ensure the continuation of this important habitat and the species, such as the Starlet Sea anemone, that require it. The sequence shows the work before and after with the last photograph showing Avocet now breeding on the islands created within the lagoons.
Reedbeds are a rare habitat and many species of conservation concern depend fully or partly on them. Reedmarsh communities are relatively scarce on Orford Ness.
In 1997, under the LIFE programme 2 extended this site ha, from 0.4 to 2.4 ha. The reed areas will expand, and to complement this, areas of deeper open water and islands were also created.
This habitat will benefit, amongst others, Marsh Harrier (an Annex 1 species under the EU Birds Directive) and Bearded Tit as well as many invertebrate species.
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