Grazing • Access & amenity • Pollution • Coastal defence maintenance • Alternative uses

Grazing (cont)

Light grazing • Moderate grazing • Heavy grazing • Abandoned grazing

Traditionally ungrazed or lightly grazed marshes are those where native herbivores (grazing ducks and geese, hares and rabbits) are the only grazing animals or where levels of stocking by domestic animals are 2 to 3 sheep or 0.7 to 1.0 young cattle per ha, or lower, for 6 months of the year (April to October). Open saltmarshes, with a complete sequence of vegetation from pioneer to strandline and transitions to terrestrial habitats, tend to be the richest biologically. In addition to the good structural diversity, they support plant communities which include several grazing sensitive species, such as sea purslane (Halimione portulacoides), sea-lavender (Limonium vulgare) and sea wormwood (Artemisia maritima); which, as well as being important constituents of the plant communities, are also important for the invertebrate animals which feed or find shelter on them. Breeding birds also find the greater structural diversity good shelter for nests during the breeding season, though in saltmarshes free from all grazing, vegetation may be too dense to support the high nest densities.