- 15 minutes ago
The Guardian has today published a feature on the poor condition of Dartmoor's SSSIs. This followed a visit by the reporter to Willings Walls and Hentor Warrens Common. In the article below, Dartmoor Nature Alliance's Tony Whitehead gives more background on the sorry decline of this common ...
Willings Walls and Hentor Warrens Common lies in south west Dartmoor on the eastern slopes of the Upper Plym above Cadover Bridge. The land is owned by the National Trust, forming a large part of their Upper Plym Estate, and is part of the larger Shaugh Prior Commons (Common Land Unit 190).
It is protected by law as part of the South Dartmoor Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Unit 61, and the Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation (SAC). The inclusion of this land in the SAC was due to its internationally important blanket bog and heathland plant communities. However, as we shall see, these wildlife habitats are in their death throes on this common. This is a story of long decline driven almost entirely by wholly unsustainable grazing pressure, paid for by the taxpayer. It is a scandalous exemplar of everything that is wrong with Dartmoor’s common land.
The decline of heather
That heather was full of the wind and the light of the moor, the searching wind and piercing light; it had bathed in moonlight and fed upon unpolluted air; its roots had sucked life from fragrant peat. It was the manna of the wilderness.
John Trevena – Heather, 1908
When Ernest George Henham, writing as John Trevena, published his 'Dartmoor trilogy' in the early 1900s, heather would have been ubiquitous across much of Dartmoor’s common land. Up on the high ground, on the deepest peat, the nodding clustered purple flowers of cross leaved heath would have bloomed here and there amongst the mosses and asphodels of the blanket bogs, while around the drier peripheries, the small purple flowers of common heather, or “ling”, would have stood clumped in tall stands amongst bilberries.
Amongst the heather, there would have been sufficient grazing for grazing animals walked up to the commons along ancient droves in spring and walked back down off the hill in autumn.
Things were changing, though. From the late 18th century, Dartmoor had been subject to the attentions of those who saw opportunity on this most marginal of lands. Not long before Henham settled in Sticklepath to write his novels, new hardier breeds of sheep and cattle had arrived on the moor. Now, sheep, particularly the Scottish Blackface, could be left out on the commons year-round.
With good grass scarce in the late winter months, these sheep were able to survive by browsing the growing tips of the heather. For sure, it wasn’t ideal, but it was sufficient for a hardy animal. In small numbers, the heather community could withstand the nibbling. But the number of animals on the moor was on the rise.
In the late 1940s, as part of the national post-war drive for greater self-sufficiency, the Government introduced new subsidies to support food production. One such subsidy was targeted at areas deemed Less Favourable and Severely Disadvantaged. As the names suggest, these were for the most marginal of lands and included the English uplands, such as Dartmoor. For decades, taxpayer money was given to farmers in these areas to support their livestock operations.
With this, the UK Government and, from the 70s, the European Union encouraged livestock farming on Dartmoor to intensify. For probably the first time, farmers could concentrate wholly on farming rather than having a range of jobs to bring in income.
The number of animals rose dramatically on Dartmoor through the 50s, 60s, and into the 70s. And with the rise, an associated practice also dramatically increased – burning. Known as “swaling” on Dartmoor, large areas were burning every spring, over and over again, to produce fresh growths of grass in spring for hungry mouths. Swaling has long been a controversial topic on Dartmoor; letters to the papers were commonplace, dating back to well before the last war, and early preservationists, such as Hansford Worth, had commented on its unsustainability in relation to the natural vegetation. But this was burning on a new scale. And, along with the heavy grazing, it was taking its toll on the heather.
Heavy repeated grazing stunts heather, which is compounded by trampling. Frequent burning, combined with heavy grazing, further increased the pressure. Also, on the deeper peats, the burning had another effect – it favoured the growth of Purple Moor Grass (Molinia caerulea), which soon became dominant at the expense of heathers. Additional pressures came from outbreaks of heather beetle, climate change, and air pollution (atmospheric nitrogen), but according to NE evidence (page 23 here), these were not driving the changes.
Over large areas on the drier peripheral parts of the moor, heather-rich heathland was degrading to species-poor acid grassland, whilst on the blanket bogs, Molinia was impoverishing previously unique plant communities. The heather, the “manna of the wilderness” was dying out: all driven by grazing and burning.
Failed schemes and wasted public money
The concern for the ongoing loss of heather on Dartmoor throughout the 80s led in to English Nature carrying out a significant study of heather condition in 1993-94. A report was published, and a series of maps produced. The survey found that 63% of Dartmoor’s commons supported some heather cover, with half showing damage and a third of this showing severe damage.
On Willings Walls and Hentor Common, the maps showed large patches where heather was absent, slightly overgrazed and severely overgrazed on the lower slopes, with some overgrazing on the higher areas of bog. There was still some healthy heather on site, on the slightly more distant parts in the east and the north.
This mirrors a similar study undertaken by National Trust in 1990.
Even though the surveys were revealing poor condition, all was not lost. The English Nature heather condition surveys paved the way for the very first agri-environment schemes. The novel idea was that instead of being paid by the taxpayer to produce livestock, the commoners could be paid to produce nature on protected sites such as SSSIs and SACs. In this way, the first Environmentally Sensitive Areas were declared in the mid-90s, and commoners started to sign up on the stipulation that, in return for payments, they reduced the number of grazing animals to allow the heather to recover.
The principle is excellent. The trouble is, the rates at which stocking densities were set were inevitably a negotiation between what commoners say they need for their farm businesses, and what nature needs. They were, and remain, a compromise. In the mid-90s, Hentor and all the commons could probably have benefited from a period of years without grazing or burning to allow for recovery. But that was not politically acceptable to farmers. So the grazing and burning continued, with some cash now paid to farmers and commoners to limit grazing.
Evidence on the ground in subsequent years suggested that the changes being made to moorland management were nowhere near sufficient for nature to recover. The heather continued to decline on Willings Walls and Hentor Common, and significantly so. By 2003, the area of heather in reasonable condition had retreated further to the north. By 2006, the only area that qualified as “heathland” rather than grass moor occupied a small area at the far north of the common.
But all was not lost. By the end of the 2000s, the ESA schemes were giving way to new Higher Level Stewardship schemes. These were detailed taxpayer-funded agreements with the local commoners to deliver nature. The Willings Walls and Hentor Commoners Association signed up with a contract worth £1,423,933 to run for ten years from 2011 to 2021. The agreement's aim was to return the SSSI to favourable condition.
The formal monitoring of SSSIs began in the 2000s, with each sub-unit assigned a condition status ranging from favourable to unfavourable, recovering, to declining, and at worst, destroyed. Two years into the HLS agreement in 2013, the Willings Walls and Hentor Unit 61 was formally surveyed, and although described as being “unfavourable”, it was classified as “recovering” because it was part of an agreed scheme, and thus there was a path to recovery.
This, as it turns out, was an optimistic assessment. In 2015, four years into the agreement, and at the behest of the site’s owners, the National Trust, another survey was carried out (Boyce 2016). It’s a depressing read. The heather had continued to decline. In the one remaining patch of “heathland” in the north of the common, the heather had died off. On the grass moor, where the heather still clung on back in the 2000s, it had now largely disappeared. The author of the report wrote, with what feels like a heavy heart, “In those places where there is still some senescent ling {common heather}, the plants continue to be heavily over-grazed and it is only a matter of time before these last old bushes are lost.”
On the higher areas, the blanket bog also remained in poor condition, dominated by acres of dense Molinia, still bearing the effects of burns from past decades. The only solace in the report was that some areas of wet heath seemed to be doing OK. Overall, though, the report describes a place where the key features for which the site is important, or at least could be important, had been lost or were fading into extinction. The scheme, in place to reverse the place's fortunes, was not working.
Despite this, and with five years more money received, in 2020 the commoners association asked about extending the agreement beyond its 2021 end date. In response, Natural England carried out a site check. On the dry heath they reported “High levels of stock (cattle and sheep) noted at time of visit and levels of dung also high across much of the habitats on the lower slopes. The range of indicator species is also generally poor and below thresholds with all stops failing to record the necessary range of species for the habitat in question.” On the wet heath, they reported “Generally, the condition of these habitats is poor, with areas on the lower slopes and in the south of the common showing signs of high browsing pressure from stock.”
After over two decades of publicly funded schemes and millions of pounds of taxpayers' money handed to commoners, the site was worse than when these schemes started. And grazing levels remained high. Rightly, NE refused to renew the scheme without changes. Despite negotiation, the necessary assurances were not forthcoming and the HLS agreement ended, and now, with no pathway to recovery Unit 61 was classified as Unfavourabe Declining. What a sorry state of affairs for nature on a site, potentially, of international importance, but where the key features had almost entirely disappeared. Either grazed and burned out of existence or swamped by Molinia, itself the legacy of excessive burning.
The End?
Whatever parlous state of nature on the common, the imperative of the commoners to graze remained. However, they were now running up against the law. As protected sites, any work carried out on a SSSI if it is potentially damaging, requires consent. On this common, those that had rights by dint of being “occupiers” – the National Trust’s tenants – needed consent to graze. They applied and Natural England (rightly) refused. This then became the subject of a legal case, which is still ongoing. Natural England also threatened a “stop order” on the commoners to stop all grazing in winter. Before the order was issued the commoners agreed to do this voluntarily.
However, the site remains in a state of decline. Yet another detailed survey in 2023, by Natural England, documented the loss of dwarf shrubs over the site in the past decade. It stated “Continued heavy grazing on dwarf shrubs, particularly heather, when now at very low cover […] risks further reduction and potentially loss from at least parts of the unit as has happened in the acid grassland sample points.” In short, the heather was nearly gone.
Likewise, the 2025 NE Dartmoor SSSI assessment firmly put this SSSI unit as “unfavourable declining,” commenting, “Some areas within the unit were noted as intensively grazed and this could be driving the dominance of Molinia. Areas of eroding peat were frequently mentioned associated with animal disturbance and burning.”
There are a great many Dartmoor commons in poor condition, but this has to be, by any metric, one of the worst. This site warrants the title of an ecological dead zone.
What is to be done?
It is still possible to restore the nature of Dartmoor's commons through sympathetic management. But is it possible to achieve with Dartmoor's farming communities and England's nature regulator, as they are?
To understand this scandalous state of affairs, it’s necessary to understand a little about the governance of Dartmoor’s commons.
In short, in terms of land management, nothing happens on Dartmoor’s commons without consideration of commoners and their grazing rights. Even the landowners themselves have relatively little sway on what happens. Willings Walls and Hentor is owned by the National Trust, who are sympathetic to nature restoration and are involved in some peat restoration work. However, they cannot do anything that might interfere with common rights, unless they work out a deal, and that’s rarely easy. Even the Ministry of Defence on the Dartmoor Ranges has to pay compensation to commoners for the live firing days because these interfere with grazing rights and livestock needs to be moved (not by the commoners you understand, the MoD does this through range clearers employed by Landmarc). This will be the subject of a future article. The National Park Authority? Unfortunately they have absolutely no powers in respect of grazing.
There are actually only two bodies that can exert legal control on grazing on Dartmoor. One is Natural England. They can, as here on Hentor, refuse to issue consent to graze; but only on the SSSIs, and not to commoners who are not notified owner/occupiers...which rather limits their power. They can also issue a Stop Notice (as can other regulatory bodies) when damage is clear and proven. They have threatened this on Willings Walls and Hentor Common, but have so far not followed through.
Beyond this, NE’s only “power” is through advising on agri-environment schemes. And while grazing rates are set by NE, they are agreed through negotiation. Back in 2023 Natural England tried to make a stand, being clear that if they were to agree to HLS schemes being extended they would need to see significant changes to stocking rates. The backlash was dramatic, and the politically driven Independent Review resulted in clipped wings and a climb down for NE.
Once rates are set in agreements, it’s also worth bearing in mind that monitoring what is happening on the ground is very challenging, especially in the remoter parts of Dartmoor’s commons. As NE stated in their evidence to the Fursdon Review (p29):
Dartmoor also has particular challenges that create resource demands, including a history of non-compliance, so some agreements have not been successful and in some cases, commons associations struggle to achieve internal consensus.
If everything was working as it should, the results would be there to see in the recovery of the heather. We do not see that on the Dartmoor commons.
The other body that has legal powers is the Dartmoor Commoners Council. Their powers derive from the Dartmoor Act 1985, which established the Council as a result of a long-running campaign to bring some order to a place that had long suffered from a lack of regulation, and in particular had a very poor record on animal husbandry.
Under the Act, the Council is responsible for regulations that aim to manage grazing on the commons. In particular, in Regulation 9, the council can issue “limitation notices”:
Whenever the Council shall consider it expedient to prescribe the maximum number of any description of animal that any person may from time to time depasture on any unit of the commons (whether by reason of the quality of the pasturage or otherwise) the Secretary of the Council shall send a Limitation Notice in accordance with Section 5(2)(a) of the Act to the owner or tenant of that land and to each person registered in accordance with Section 7 of the Act as having rights to depasture on that unit of the commons specifying the common land so restricted, the period of the limitation and the maximum number and description of animals that an owner, tenant or other person may depasture on that unit of the commons for that duration and shall send a copy of each such notice to the Secretary of the Commoners' Association to whose area the restriction applies.
However, it has very rarely used these powers, and indeed in January this year, actually voted not to use them at this time.
This means that on the one hand we have one regulatory body with limited powers, Natural England, that, especially after the Fursdon review, is unwilling to use them, and on the other hand, another regulatory body, the Commoners Council, that is actively NOT using its powers.
This leaves just one thing that controls grazing on Dartmoor, and that’s the allocation of rights. The number of animals any commoner can graze is limited in law to the number set under the 1965 Commons registration act. The significant problem with this, however, is that the 1965 Act did not attempt to establish sustainable limits. Commoners submitted their numbers, and these were then fixed in various commissions over the ensuing years. If you add up all the numbers for any one common the number is huge. Of course few actively graze the commons nowadays, there are probably under 200 commoners, and few of those use all their rights. But they could do so if they wished. Even at current levels, on commons with live agreements, the numbers are still causing damage and preventing recovery.
The death of nature?
The death of nature on Willings Walls and Hentor reveals multiple failures. Like much of Dartmoor, it illustrates the scale of post-war agricultural policy failure, which used public money to drive stocking levels way beyond sustainable limits —a legacy that nature still bears. More tragically, it also reveals the complete failure of agri-environment schemes to restore nature on Dartmoor.
It is right that public money is used to support nature’s restoration, because the public benefits are enormous. And schemes can work, as we know from other places in England - the recovery of Cirl Buntings in Devon, for instance, is wholly due to public money invested in farming and well spent. But on Dartmoor, the potential of schemes to deliver change has always been compromised in negotiations with the commoning community.
Although the schemes have brought grazing rates down from the historic highs of the 80s and 90s, compromise has always meant the numbers are never low enough. For instance, on the huge Forest of Dartmoor common, the agreed-upon rates allow an average of 0.52 ewes per hectare (data from stocking rates provided through EIR request). In a Natural England 2020 Study of 25 years of schemes in the Lake District, habitat response was universally good only up to 0.4 ewes/ha.
Indeed, the results are there to see – if the levels had been right, with the right numbers of animals grazing at the right times of year, we would have seen the heather recover. At Willings Walls and Hentor, as elsewhere we have not, and worse, the decline has merely continued.
The compromises are born of powerful vested interests that put grazing rights before nature. The Dartmoor Commoners’ Council was established in 1985 specifically to address the mismanagement of the commons, particularly to tackle animal husbandry and intra-commons disputes. It was at the time novel, and for a while, may have worked in the true interests of the health of the commons. Sadly, it appears to have become little more than a trade organisation for some in the commoning community. What should be an independent public body, using its powers appropriately, has instead become a reactionary organisation working against the changes necessary for nature to start recovering.
Sadly, we also have a compromised regulator. We have seen above what happened when NE tried to make a stand in 2023. On a neighbouring common, Penn and Stall Moor, local NE officers could not be sure, following a Habitats Regulation Assessment in 2023, that proposed works that were part of an HLS agreement would not cause continuing damage. NE directors waved it through.
It often feels, from the outside, that the local NE approach post-Fursdon is primarily to facilitate commoning and farming, and any benefits to nature are a fortuitous side effect. This is despite the huge weight of their own evidence on the causes and solutions to nature's decline (the aspect of land management that NE are supposed to enable and regulate).
The result of all this is a landscape governed not by ecological needs, but by a deeply entrenched status quo and defence of grazing interests, coupled with a waste of public money. The glacial progress of the new Dartmoor Land Use Management Group does nothing to give any confidence that this is not the case.
If Dartmoor is to have a future rich in nature and restored protected sites, its governance must be reimagined from the ground up. That means giving Natural England the confidence to act decisively when nature is in decline. It means reforming the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council so that it serves the public interest, not just one stakeholder group. It means putting ecological science at the heart of decision-making, rather than burying it beneath negotiation and compromise. And it means creating real consequences when public funds fail to deliver public goods. Restoration is possible, but we need payment by results.
The lessons from Willings Walls and Hentor are clear: nature recovery cannot happen without reform and a fundamental change of attitude. Without it, the decline will continue—not just here, but across the moor. And we will look back, years from now, and wonder how we ever thought it acceptable to let a national treasure be eaten and burned to death on our watch.
We need bold change. Because Dartmoor deserves better.
