A guide to deciding what sort of grazing best suits your woodland
This guide to developing a Woodland Grazing Plan is designed for woodland owners, managers and farmers seeking to manage their woodland to achieve biodiversity and/or cultural heritage objectives, using livestock as a management tool.
Grazing with livestock is only one of many tools available to woodland managers. Before going any further consider whether livestock grazing is likely to be right for your woodland. If it is, the toolbox will help you to determine the most suitable grazing regime.
Using the Toolbox
The toolbox has eight sections, each of which corresponds to a section of your Woodland Grazing Plan (see template provided below). Download the template then use the guidance here to help you complete each section.
Step 1: Download the Grazing Plan template (doc 58k).
Step 2: Work through the online guidance to help you complete the plan.
The eight sections of the toolbox and the template plan are:
- The introduction
- General description of woodland
- Habitat types and key features
- Habitat condition, biodiversity and cultural heritage objectives
- Constraints
- Grazing regimes
- Monitoring
- Actions
The Toolbox site map gives a handy overview of the complete structure of the guidance.
Feedback
If you would like to make any comments about the toolbox especially if you have used the toolbox to write a woodland grazing management plan, please email Helen Armstrong: helen.armstrong@forestry.gsi.gov.uk.
About the toolbox
Find out who has developed this toolbox.
Herbivore assessment and monitoring
If you are just looking for a method of assessing and monitoring the impact of large herbivores on woodlands please see section 4.1 (assessment) and section 7 (monitoring). You can download the pages that are relevant to you, edit them and make your own tailor-made assessment or monitoring pack.
