Guidance

Guidance to help inform when an upland breeding wader survey is needed and when woodland creation is likely to be appropriate

This guidance has been jointly produced by Defra, Forestry Commission and Natural England to help ensure that proposals for afforestation identify and avoid important breeding wader sites.

• From: Forestry Commission, Natural England and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
• Published: 31 January 2022
• Last updated: 19 April 2024 — See all updates

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

Documents

Guidance to help inform when an upland breeding wader survey is needed and when woodland creation is likely to be appropriate

PDF, 896 KB, 14 pages

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Guidance to help inform when an upland breeding wader survey is needed and when woodland creation is likely to be appropriate

HTML

Upland Breeding Wader Guidance: Frequently Asked Questions

PDF, 228 KB, 6 pages

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Details

This guidance has been jointly produced by Defra, Forestry Commission and Natural England to help our staff and applicants:

• identify sites that are not likely to be of importance for waders
• know when further engagement with the Forestry Commission and Natural England is required to determine if an upland breeding wader survey is needed
• identify sites where we will fund an upland breeding waders survey
• decide on the suitability of sites for woodland creation where we have breeding wader survey information

This guidance will help you with early screening of site sensitivities. It does not replace full assessment of sites submitted for afforestation. This guidance applies to upland farmland and moorland in the north of England and deals only with curlew, lapwing and redshank.

There are other bird species which breed or forage on unenclosed habitats, including ground nesting raptors, oystercatcher, snipe, golden plover, dunlin, ring ouzel, skylark and twite etc. Afforestation can have a negative impact on all these species which all need to be considered.

Published 31 January 2022
Last updated 19 April 2024 + show all updates

1. 19 April 2024

   Added an updated PDF and created a HTML (accessible) version of the PDF.

2. 27 July 2023

   Guidance and FAQs updated.

3. 18 April 2023

   Minor updates to guidance.

4. 20 September 2022

   Minor amendment to the trees and wader guidance to include a clearer definition of ‘woodland’ based on NFI criteria.

5. 11 August 2022

   Updating the guidance.

6. 31 January 2022

   First published.