Cattle grazing

Habitats such as marshland and heathland were naturally created and maintained by large grazing animals which, many thousands of years ago, used to wander wild in our countryside.

These animals' annual grazing cycles would prevent the over-growth of trees and their selective feeding preferences would have created a diverse and well-balanced natural ecosystem.

As with everything, nothing stays the same, and nature is always changing.

Evolutionary changes happen and over thousands of years one species of herbivore is replaced by another, and the plant and animal species of the habitats evolve to adapt to their new environment.

However, relatively recently man arrived on the scene.

At first he was just another predator, but as time passed his intelligence allowed him to develop a skill particular to his species - the ability to change the natural world to meet his needs.

Initially in these habitats he introduced farmed animals.

These replaced wild native animals, which are now, in most cases, extinct.

But the nature of these habitats - marshes flooded and the heaths produced very low nutrient growth - meant that farming practices had to closely mirror the natural cycles and hence these habitats persisted and even increased.

It was not until the last few hundred years that the will and technology existed to start draining marshes to make better use of their fertile soils.

And only in the last few decades, with modern agricultural methods, such as the adding of nutrients to the land and the pressures exerted for more land development to support the needs of a rapidly-rising human population, have we seen the wholesale loss of these habitats.

This has resulted in only a minute fragment of these wildlife rich and biologically unique habitats still existing today.

The Wyre Forest grazing animal project is a partnership between the district council, English Nature, the Wildlife Trust and a farmer.

It tries to recreate an old-style farming practice set within the modern agricultural regulations, to recreate the low-intensity grazing patterns these sites once had.

This will allow the plants and animals which had evolved over the passing of thousands of years a chance to continue into the future.

Getting these grazing patterns right is not easy, as most of the traditional knowledge of how these areas were once grazed has been lost and the areas themselves are now in completely different social settings.

Despite this, great progress has been made and an increase in the diversity of wildlife has been witnessed with each passing year of the scheme.