Understanding the New Forest’s natural capital

Conclusions

We believe this to be one of the first local studies of natural capital to follow the policy direction set out in the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. It shows how the established methodology can be used at a fine landscape scale to categorise and describe natural capital in a way that recognises local characteristics and management systems. If this can be done in a protected landscape as unique, complex and special as the New Forest, it should be applicable in all other English landscapes.

The study has found it essential to include an assessment of both natural and human resources in order to properly describe how the New Forest’s natural capital assets deliver public goods.

The study has found that the extent and condition of most natural capital assets in the New Forest is good and either static or improving (see Figure 3 opposite). Key reasons for these successes include support for commoning from the Basic Payments Scheme and Environmental Stewardship scheme. These have made this vocational practice sustainable, promoting both quality and quantity of grazing livestock. The agri-environment schemes have supported the restoration of commercial forestry inclosures to grazed heath and previously deepened or realigned watercourses to a more naturally functioning state.

Factors responsible for declining extent or condition include the changing climate, intrusion and disturbance from human activities and economic pressures.

We believe that this work shows the great value of public goods already provided by the survival of the New Forest landscape and joint working to enhance it. It provides an important baseline for exciting work that would be an exemplar of the principle of 'public money for public goods'.

3. Matrix linking the New Forest's natural capital assets to the public goods it provides to the nation

1. Introduction

The New Forest is uniquely special. It preserves an assemblage of wild species and traditional management practices that is of global significance. The New Forest’s survival as an intact cultural landscape, with a system of common grazing that harks back to the very origins of settled farming in the British Isles, is truly remarkable and reflects its location, geology, ownership by the Crown, historic rights of use and the independent spirit of its people.

This system of management, involving a close partnership of interests representing the Crown, commoners, Government agencies and local communities, has ensured that the New Forest maintains a complex mosaic of habitats which is found at this scale nowhere else in western Europe. The New Forest provides one of the largest areas of open access countryside in southern England and is one of the UK’s premier visitor destinations with more than 15 million visitor days a year.

1 This is set out in the Command Paper ‘Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit’ (February 2018, Cm 9577) and in the Explanatory Text to the Agriculture Bill (September 2018).

During the next few years, the New Forest faces fundamental decisions which will determine its ability to sustain and enhance its many benefits to society:

• in 2020, the Environmental Stewardship agreement that has been specially created for the Crown Lands is due to end
• following Brexit, the Government plans to phase out the Basic Payment Scheme that underpins the Forest’s agricultural economy from 2024, replacing this entirely by 2027 with a new Environmental Land Management scheme which is currently under development
• the policies that determine how visitors are welcomed and how their impacts on the landscape are managed are under review (the New Forest Recreation Management Strategy)
• the statutory Management Plan for the National Park will be revised to enable a new Partnership Plan to be published in 2020
• at a national level, the New Forest together with other designated landscapes in England, is the subject of a review for Defra being led by Julian Glover.

A key consideration in all these reviews and decisions will be the way that the New Forest provides public goods to society. The Government has made clear that financial support in the countryside after Brexit will be based on ‘public money for public goods’1. The concept of natural capital, which underpins the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan published in January 2018, defines how these public goods are provided and ensures that their value is properly taken into account in decision making.

MAP 1 Orientation

New Forest National Park; Main urban areas; Topography; The open forest landscape; Main road.

2. The public goods produced by the New Forest

A thorough understanding of the New Forest’s public goods helps to identify both the area’s natural capital and the ways that public money and policy measures can support them. These public goods can be defined from two perspectives.

Firstly, Defra’s proposals for the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme that will be introduced in England in 2024 include a list of public goods which apply across the whole country. They are:

• thriving plants and wildlife
• enhanced beauty, heritage and engagement (including recreation)
• clean and plentiful water
• clean air
• habitable climate
• mitigation of and protection from hazards.

Secondly, the special qualities of the National Park, as prepared for the Partnership Plan and State of the Park Report, describe the specific characteristics that are found in the New Forest and which the National Park designation is designed to conserve and enhance (Table 1, p12).

The term ‘public goods’ comes from economics and defines resources that are both accessible to everyone and do not diminish through their consumption, in contrast to ‘private goods’ where this is not the case. The term can be applied to social goods (such as information and public order) and environmental goods (such as fresh air and healthy soils).

The use of the term in relation to the Government’s environmental policy is relatively new and builds on the concept of ecosystem services. These are ‘the benefits provided by ecosystems that contribute to making human life both possible and worth living’ (UK NEA, 2011).

This document examines how this ‘public goods from natural capital’ approach can be applied most effectively to the New Forest’s core – the Crown Lands and other commons (Map 2) – thus providing an up-to-date evidence base to inform debate and policy development. Notwithstanding its focus on this core of common land, the initiative is not restricted to a tight physical boundary. It acknowledges that natural capital located in the surrounding countryside plays a vital role in delivering the public goods that come from the common land. Furthermore, it recognises that there is huge potential for enhancing these public goods by improving the condition of this more widely dispersed natural capital. The back-up land used by commoners is a prime example of this more widely distributed resource.

This document has been produced by a group representing the organisations that own, manage or regulate the Open Forest, including those who exercise the common rights over the landscape. It demonstrates the consensus between them on the public goods they seek to provide and the natural capital they look after.

The rest of this report starts by defining the public goods that the New Forest provides (section 2). Section 3 explores the concept of natural capital and section 4 defines and describes the key natural capital assets present in the New Forest. Section 5 draws conclusions on how a better understanding of the New Forest’s natural capital can be used to enhance the public benefits it provides. A bibliography of key sources of evidence is provided in section 6.

The term ‘public goods’ comes from economics and defines resources that are both accessible to everyone and do not diminish through their consumption, in contrast to ‘private goods’ where this is not the case. The term can be applied to social goods (such as information and public order) and environmental goods (such as fresh air and healthy soils).

The use of the term in relation to the Government’s environmental policy is relatively new and builds on the concept of ecosystem services. These are ‘the benefits provided by ecosystems that contribute to making human life both possible and worth living’ (UK NEA, 2011).

5. The public goods provided by the New Forest

The following section describes these components of the New Forest. Taken collectively, these descriptions form a statement of significance of the public goods that the area provides to society.

4. Summary of the special qualities of the New Forest National Park

• Outstanding natural beauty
• The extraordinary diversity of plants and animals
• A unique historic, cultural and archaeological heritage
• An historic commoning system
• Tranquillity
• Opportunities for quiet recreation, learning and discovery
• The iconic New Forest pony
• Strong and distinctive local communities
• A healthy environment.

Discussions with the organisations that own, manage or advise on the New Forest’s commons and farmland have demonstrated a strong degree of consensus about the New Forest’s public goods. A list prepared by the Commoners’ Defence Association captured the full range of distinctive public goods produced from the commoning system. There was agreement that ‘cultural’ goods such as scenic beauty, access to nature and our shared human heritage are powerful public benefits which should be set alongside the ‘provisioning and regulating’ goods such as water and air quality, genetic diversity and climate change mitigation. The National Trust, among others, emphasised the benefits provided by volunteering and public education to build future public support for the natural environment.

From this discussion and taking account of Defra’s proposals for the ELM scheme and the special qualities of the National Park, the list of public goods shown in Table 2 was agreed. This distinguishes between public goods that are particularly characteristic of the New Forest, helping to define its environmental and cultural identity (‘special qualities’) and those that apply more universally but which are found in abundance in the New Forest (here termed ‘healthy environment’).

Special qualities

Commoning and cultural heritage

The New Forest’s system of commoning and smallholding stretches back into antiquity, with its origins in the pastoralism on open lands that preceded enclosed agriculture. It is one of the few remaining extensive systems of common rights operating in lowland Europe. The long continuity of commoning grazing is the primary reason for the survival of the Forest’s outstanding landscapes, biodiversity and archaeological record.

The Forest reveals an incredible ‘time depth’ of archaeological preservation, including 340 Bronze Age barrows, fine Iron Age hillforts, evidence of Roman potteries and military infrastructure from both World Wars. The 214 scheduled monuments in the National Park are 10% of all those in south east England, but they represent the tip of an iceberg, with a huge number of archaeological sites in the Forest waiting to be assessed.

Scenic beauty and tranquillity

The New Forest’s National Park designation is a recognition of its outstanding natural beauty2. The Open Forest landscapes of grazed woodland, heathland, mires and grass lawns, interspersed with large wooded Inclosures, cover half of the National Park area, the large majority being owned by the Crown and managed by Forestry England. Around the Open Forest lie ancient forest farmlands and smallholdings kept by commoners.

2 The National Park is recognised internationally as a ‘Category V’ Protected Landscape ‘where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant ecological, biological, cultural and scenic value’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The New Forest contains the largest undeveloped coastal area in the south east of England and, compared with the busy urban and rural areas that surround it, offers high levels of tranquillity free from sensory intrusions.

Thriving plants and wildlife

Large areas of the New Forest are designated as a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive. The citation of its protected features includes a wide range of habitats, including wet and dry heaths, aquatic habitats and beech and oak woods, and species such as the southern damselfly and stag beetle.

Much of the New Forest’s diverse ecosystem, including the dwarf shrub heath, acid grassland and valley mire habitats have survived due to the patterns of extensive livestock grazing provided by the commoning system. The life cycle of many of the nationally rare, atypically abundant or iconic species relies on these patterns of grazing and the activities of commoners’ livestock.

Access and recreation

Relative to its size, the New Forest is probably one of the most visited National Parks in the world. At 15 million visitor days a year, it has the third highest number of annual visitors of any of the UK’s National Parks, despite being one its smallest.

Most people come for the day, from urban areas such as Southampton, Bournemouth, London, Bristol and the West Midlands to enjoy the landscape and wildlife of the heathland, woodland and coast; to eat and shop in the towns and villages or to take part in coastal activities. The tourism economy (which generates nearly £400 million annually) is heavily reliant on many of the public goods provided by the New Forest.

Public engagement and education

The New Forest’s ecosystems and cultural landscapes provide an important area for academic study and research, some of it involving international institutions. At a national and regional level, it also provides opportunities for volunteering and skills training to the general public.

In addition to the recreational experiences and knowledge that visitors gain, the New Forest contributes more broadly to public understanding of its environment and history through television and radio documentaries, magazines, books, art works and crafts, including to people who do not physically visit the National Park. Residents and visitors also have the opportunity to engage directly in conserving the New Forest through volunteer activities that give them a personal stake in its future.

The New Forest’s national and international designations

The New Forest National Park covers 56,658 hectares (220 square miles) and, with the exception of the Broads, is the smallest National Park in the UK.

Half of the National Park is common land, over which commoners have legal rights to graze livestock and gather fuel. The majority of the common land is owned by the Crown under the management of Forestry England (the Crown Lands) and most of the remainder is owned by the National Trust (the Northern Commons).

With the exception of a few outlying commons, these areas lie within the ‘perambulation’ of the Forest which was defined in the 1964 New Forest Act and marks the historic boundary of the royal hunting forest.

All of the Crown Lands and Northern Commons are part of the New Forest Special Area of Conservation, designated under the EU Habitats Directive and are also UK Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The National Park contains a higher concentration of priority habitats and SSSIs than any other National Park in England.

There are 183 scheduled monuments in the National Park, almost all found in the undisturbed soils of the common lands. These designated scheduled monuments represent a small proportion of the many historical sites which preserve a wealth of evidence of the area’s long history.

Healthy environment

Clean water and air

The ponds, mires, streams and rivers of the New Forest are amongst the cleanest in lowland England, free from sources of pollution and supporting a rich aquatic life.

In the context of the relatively high levels of industrial air pollution occurring on the Solent to the east of the New Forest, the clean south-westerly airflow from the New Forest provides an important source of clean air to the residents of Southampton.

Mitigation of flooding

The storage of rainfall and attenuation of peak river flows that takes place in wet heaths, valley mires and riparian woodland of the New Forest reduces the risk of flooding in downstream settlements such as Brockenhurst.

Habitable climate

Carbon that is held in the peat/humic soils and timber of the New Forest is a regionally significant store, taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Losses of other greenhouse gases from land use (nitrous oxide and methane) are likely to be much less in the New Forest than in areas of more intensively managed farmland.

Healthy soils3

The undisturbed soils of the Open Forest nurture the diverse habitats and help produce the source of clean water in ponds and streams. Organic carbon stored in the peat and humic soils sequester atmospheric carbon.

3 There has been recent debate about whether the UK’s soils are a public or private good. In the New Forest, their public ownership and shared use undeniably makes them a ‘common good’ (non-excludable and partly rivalrous, in the jargon).

Animal health

High standards of animal health, to prevent the spread of disease between commoners’ livestock and maintain high standards of welfare, are an essential part of the commoning system.

3. The concept of natural capital

Natural capital is defined as ‘the parts of the natural environment that produce value to people’ (UK Natural Capital Committee). The natural capital assets that we value are a combination of both natural and human resources (the latter being essential to provide natural resources with their use and significance to society). In the jargon, the stock of natural capital assets provides a flow of goods and services that give value to people. This pathway, which includes an important positive feedback is shown in Figure 6.

6. The stock of natural capital assets, producing the flow of services that benefit people

Adapted by Rural Focus from ONS (2017). Principles of Natural Capital Accounting

MAP 2 Designations in the National Park

New Forest National Park; Other common land; Scheduled Monuments; The perambulation; New Forest SAC; Built-up areas; The Crown lands; Other SSSIs in National Park; Northern Commons; Registered Historic Parks and Gardens.

4. Defining the New Forest’s natural capital assets

As noted earlier (Figure 1), the natural capital approach relies on being able to match up the stock of individual assets with the public goods they provide. Clear definitions of the different types of natural capital assets are needed, avoiding duplication between the language of different disciplines and recognising where gaps in current knowledge exist. There is no recommended classification from the Natural Capital Committee and none that is widely adopted, but an approach developed in a recently completed study in another National Park may be helpful5.

5 Deane & Walker (2018).

The process of working through each of the public goods (figure 5), identifying the assets that are needed to deliver them, has produced the typology of natural capital for the New Forest that is shown in figure 8 (p22). This differentiates between natural and human resources (Figure 1) and splits both of these into two sub-types. Natural resources are split between areas of land cover and point or linear features. Human resources are split between those that are built or manufactured and those that are cultural. The natural and built resources tend to be tangible assets (seen and touched), whereas many of the cultural resources are intangible. If the New Forest’s vital public goods are to be maintained and improved, the stock (extent and condition) of both types of assets needs to be supported.

There is an agreed methodology for determining the stock of natural capital assets, from which economists can estimate the value of the services provided. This involves measuring their extent (how much and where it is) and condition (what state it is in). It is also often helpful to record how these things are changing over time. These measures are shown in figure 7 (below) and form the basis for much of the analysis in this paper.

4 See White et al. (2015) which estimated the value of a range of ecosystem services delivered from the New Forest.

This study has not attempted to assign an economic value to the public goods provided by the New Forest’s natural capital. Although there are well-established methodologies available to monetise public goods (or ecosystem services) from defined areas such as the New Forest4, this document is more concerned with understanding how the stocks of natural capital and the public goods they provide can be enhanced through public policy and the actions of those who own, manage and regulate them.

7. Information needed to measure the stock of natural capital

8. Classification of natural capital assets for the Forest

In the rest of this section, each of these natural capital assets is described in turn. A table indicates the public goods provided by the asset (with dark green shading showing it has a particularly significant role to play and light green shading showing a lesser role) and a second table summarises its extent and condition.

Natural resources: land cover

The land cover of different types of vegetation is the main building block of natural capital. Map 3 shows the main categories of land cover in the New Forest from which public goods are provided. Blank areas on this map within the National Park are mostly covered by arable farming or commercial forestry.

MAP 3 Land cover

New Forest National Park; Mires; Statutory inclosures (conifer); Wood pasture; Potential back-up pasture; Built-up areas; Heathland and dry grassland mosaic.

Heathland and acid grassland mosaic

The Crown Lands and surrounding commons of the New Forest contain the largest contiguous area of this internationally important habitat in western Europe. Made up from different plant communities of humid, wet and dry heath, dry acid grassland, including areas dominated by bracken, the open heathland is a key characteristic of the landscape that supports a wide range of characteristic species. The Forest heaths maintain their quality because of ongoing grazing and traditional management.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Lawns

On areas where livestock gather and feed frequently, short-cropped grassland has developed. These ‘lawns’ include plant communities of dry acid, wet and agriculturally improved grassland. Close grazing favours nationally rare plants such as chamomile and, in wetter poached soils, small fleabane. As with lowland heathland, they have developed as a result of common grazing and were this to decline significantly, natural succession from shrubs and trees would take place relatively quickly.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Wood pasture

The ancient beech and oak woods of the New Forest are the largest area of active wood pasture in north-west Europe, containing many internationally rare species including bats, invertebrates, fungi and lichens. This exceptional habitat is influenced by the browsing and foraging actions of commoners’ livestock (ponies and cattle and, in the autumn, pigs). Over many centuries, this activity has given rise to the relatively open structure of the woodland with a sparse ground flora and shrub layer, helping to support the rich lichen flora.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Scrub

Across much of the heathland areas, against woodland or on steeper slopes, there are areas of scrub, typically of common gorse with areas of hawthorn, holly, rowan and bramble. The gorse scrub provides a valuable source of year-round browsing for ponies and exists in balance with the intensity of livestock grazing. The diversity of scrub, in structure and species, supports high numbers of invertebrates and rare species such as the Dartford warbler.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Valley mires

The New Forest contains about 75% of the remaining areas of valley mire habitat in north-west Europe and by far the largest area in the UK. These mires occur in the valleys and valley sides of the Forest’s rivers and streams, where the rain-fed ground water table comes to the surface. Most of the mires are highly biodiverse and are particularly rich in dragonflies and damselflies, with the New Forest supporting breeding populations of 29 of the 39 dragonflies in Britain and other rare invertebrates such as the Large Marsh Grass-hopper and Black Bog Ant. The mires provide valuable grazing for commoners’ livestock in the early spring and during periods of drought on the open heath.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Statutory inclosures

Since the beginning of the 18th Century, the Forestry England and its predecessors as agents of the Crown have created forestry plantations in fenced inclosures within parts of the Crown Lands. Opposed by commoners because it deprived them of their grazing rights, many of these silvicultural inclosures have now been ‘thrown open’ to restore grazing to natural habitats. There is now a broad range of habitats in the inclosures, including native broadleaved (some of it former ancient wood pasture), conifer and mixed woodland, wood pasture and open habitats. Forestry England’s management objectives are to increase native woodland cover, connecting old growth woodland, and to restore open habitats, while continuing to produce quality timber.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Enclosed (back-up) pasture

The commoning system relies on commoners having access to enclosed grazing land close to the Open Forest, where ponies and cattle can be fed during the winter or brought back for calving. These areas of ‘back-up land’ may be owned, tenanted, or rented on a short-term basis by commoners. The land makes up a high proportion of the small pasture fields, surrounded by hedges or woodland, in the farmland surrounding the Crown lands. Most of the back-up land is extensively managed as permanent pasture, with large mixed hedges and often containing small ponds. It can be biodiverse in comparison to the improved grassland and arable fields on more intensively managed farmland. Ensuring a sufficient and affordable supply of this land is a pre-requisite for the continuation of a viable and active commoning system.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Natural resources: features

Rare and atypically abundant wildlife

The large and contiguous area and historical continuity of habitats in the New Forest, as well as their location on the southern edge of Britain mean that they host many rare and unusual species. The Forest provides a stronghold for species which are now uncommon elsewhere in England’s lowlands (i.e. atypically abundant in the New Forest). Bats, reptiles, dragonflies, damselflies, lichens and fungi are all well represented. Species of particular note include the wild gladioli, smooth snake, tadpole shrimp, small fleabane, noble chafer and Dartford warbler (pictured).

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Iconic species and breeds

This study makes a distinction between the rare wildlife described above, and other plants and animals which may not be particularly rare but are popularly associated with the Forest as indicative of its special character and part of its folklore. They remind residents and visitors why the New Forest is special to them. Examples include the New Forest pony, which has rare breed status; the populations of deer; veteran trees such as the Knightwood Oak; the fungi that fruit in the woodlands in the autumn; goshawks and adder (pictured).

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Livestock

As already mentioned, commoners’ ponies, cattle and sheep, and pigs in the pannage season, are an essential part of the New Forest ecosystem, maintaining the heathland and wood pasture landscapes and biodiversity. The New Forest pony is globally renowned and is classified as a rare breed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Most of the cattle are reared locally from cross-bred suckler cows. The grazing of livestock on the Open Forest is overseen by the agisters employed by the New Forest Verderers according to Forest bylaws. A high priority is given to maintaining healthy animals for welfare reasons and to minimise the risk of disease spreading between herds.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Water bodies

The New Forest is one of the most important sites for freshwater biodiversity in the UK. There are an estimated 1,000 ponds in the New Forest, ranging from ephemeral pools on the edges of trackways, to larger bodies of permanent water such as Hatchet Pond. The New Forest lies between the Avon and Test valleys but most of the Forest drains through small river systems which originate in the north of the National Park such as the Lymington and Beaulieu rivers, the Linford brook, Latchmore brook and Bartley Water. The Forest has many examples of natural river channels and systems, ponds and bog pools that are extremely rare elsewhere in lowland England. Ephemeral water bodies host a number of nationally rare species such as the Fairy and Tadpole shrimps. Some sites are popular visitor destinations. Commoners’ animals rely on these for drinking and their action, in turn, creates diverse habitats (for instance light poaching of river side ground and browsing of vegetation) which increases their biodiversity.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Soils

Geologically, the New Forest is in the Hampshire Basin on a bedrock of soft sedimentary clays and sands, overlain with gravel terraces formed by ancient rivers. These have produced soils that vary from nutrient-poor acid sands and gravels, to richer clays and loams. Peat and humic soils occur where the water table comes to the surface.

The distribution of these soils and the historical land use by people determines the current vegetation, with the heathland/acid grassland mosaic on the nutrient-poor sands and gravels in the north of the New Forest giving way to pasture farmland and woodland in the richer clays and loams towards the south.

The undisturbed nature of many of the waterlogged soils in bogs and mires has left a nationally significant record of ancient pollen samples in peat soils, enabling changes in the New Forest’s vegetation to be traced, in some places, back the end of the last Ice Age.

Public goods provided

Heritage; Beauty; Wildlife; Access; Education; Water and air; Flood mitigation; Climate; Soils; Animal health

Human resources: access and built elements

A range of resources created and maintained by people in the New Forest are essential components of its natural capital. Map 4 illustrates the location of the different types of built elements, without which many of the public goods provided by the area could not be provided.

MAP 4 Access and built elements

New Forest National Park; Road network; Car parks in Crown lands; Access land; Footpath; Campsites in Crown lands; Access land in woodland; Bridleway; Livestock handling facilities; Built-up land; Byway.

Open access land and linear routes

The public have rights of access on foot and horse for quiet recreation over all the Crown Lands and surrounding commons. Cycling is permitted on certain tracks. Rights of access on the Crown Lands are administered by Forestry England in accordance with national legislation and local bylaws. Although access on foot on the Open Forest is not restricted to specific linear routes, in practice people tend to favour paths and tracks through vegetation which often follow ‘desire lines’ (from one place to another). The grass verges of the unfenced forest roads, kept short by grazing livestock, provide easy routes for walkers and riders.

Livestock handling facilities

Commoners’ management of their livestock requires a dispersed network of physical infrastructure to enable efficient and humane handling, treatment and selection. This includes the Beaulieu Road sale yard where the annual pony sale is organised by the New Forest Livestock Society; pounds on the edges of commons to aid the gathering and treatment of animals; haulage lorries for moving animals; and livestock housing on commoners’ own land. These facilities provide part of the socio-economic infrastructure that allows commoning to take place.

Boundary features

The Open Forest is, by definition, unenclosed, but there are a variety of boundary features such as fences, banks, hedges and lines of trees around its edges. Many of these are maintained to prevent livestock entering farmland or woodland Inclosures, while others are artefacts from previous Inclosures and are now historical features. Fenced boundaries, such as against woodland Inclosures, are used to aid the gathering of animals. Beside the Forest roads, car-free ditching and padlocked barriers are used to prevent public vehicle access onto the Open Forest.

Visitor infrastructure and destinations

Forestry England and other land owners provide facilities to help visitors enjoy the New Forest, and to manage their impacts. This includes car parks, interpretation boards and direction signs, benches, toilets and litter bins.

Campsites are licensed at certain sites such as Hollands Wood, Denny Wood and Matley Wood. Popular visitor destinations within the Open Forest include the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive and Bolderwood Deer Sanctuary and viewing platform. Places where the public can learn about the New Forest include the New Forest Heritage Centre in Lyndhurst and the New Forest Wildlife Park near Ashurst. Popular sites that offer good visitor experiences away from the Open Forest, reducing their impacts, include Foxbury, Lepe Country Park, Moors Valley, Ringwood Forest and Roydon Woods.

Commoners’ housing

Commoners must live close enough to be able to check their animals on the commons on a regular basis. Although not essential, it is also desirable that commoners live on smallholdings which have land and buildings to keep their animals. The large majority of the most active commoners (‘active’ in terms of the number of animals depastured on the commons) live in the villages that surround the Crown Lands. The very high cost of open market housing rents relative to local earnings is a significant issue that may affect the future of the commoning system, particularly for the next generation of commoners.

Human resources: cultural components

Governance and regulation

A complex framework of parliamentary Acts, local bylaws, regulations and policies have developed over many centuries and now govern the rights and responsibilities of landowners, commoners, statutory undertakers and the public in the New Forest. These include the various New Forest Acts (1697, 1877, 1964, etc), the bylaws of the Forestry England, Verderers and National Trust and the New Forest National Park Authority Local Plan. Specific directives from government over the regulation of the New Forest include the Minister’s Mandate to the Forestry England (1971 and subsequently) and the Illingworth Report (1991).

International and national legislation including the EU Birds and Habitats Directive, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 are particularly relevant to the National Park. Decisions by government, including the Minister Mandate to the Forestry England and the Illingworth Report as core policies for the Crown Lands, documents such as the Forest Design Plan, Crown Lands Management Plan and Special Area of Conservation (SAC) Plan guide the way that large parts of the National Park are managed. All these influence the way public goods are provided in the New Forest and can be considered as a type of cultural capital.

Skills and knowledge

The centuries of practice in the New Forest have produced a unique and irreplaceable reservoir of knowledge of land management and care for the environment. Successful commoning requires an understanding of the patterns of movement and grazing by livestock, signs of ill health and distress, and stock selection for breeding to suit the Forest environment. Retaining this knowledge and passing it on to future generations will be essential for the commoning system to continue to provide public goods and services.

Volunteering

The voluntary commitment of time and skills by large numbers of people makes an essential contribution to the conservation of the Forest through organisations such as the Commoners Defence Association, New Forest Trust, New Forest Association and the Pony Breed Society.

Volunteering by the wider public is also of growing importance. Forestry England, the National Trust, New Forest Land Advice Service, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and New Forest Area Conservation Volunteers run successful volunteering schemes, drawing on people in nearby villages and towns as well as visitors from further afield. The Freshwater Habitats Trust’s ‘Clean Water for Wildlife’ project and the New Forest ‘Our Past Our Future’ project use ‘citizen science’ projects to improve knowledge and understanding of the New Forest.

Heritage and landscape features

The undisturbed soils and landscapes of the New Forest preserve a long and remarkably rich heritage of human activity. Recent aerial surveys have shown that the Forest is rich in features that are still to be investigated. Amongst the most significant heritage features currently known about are the records of past land use held in peat soils (pollen and carbon) at sites such as Cranesmoor, and the Bronze Age barrows often found on prominent ridges and Romano-British pottery kilns excavated in the north eastern part of the New Forest. The long legacies of commoning and management of the Crown Lands, in the form of historic settlement patterns and vernacular building design, the breed lines and brands of New Forest ponies, and the knowledge and skills held in commoning families, are all important cultural assets.

Traditional customs and events

The New Forest’s cultural identity and sense of place lies in the many events and traditions that take place throughout the year, many of which are associated with commoning and smallholding. They include the drifts, when ponies are rounded-up from the Forest for branding and selection (pictured), the point-to-point races across the Forest, the pony sales at the Beaulieu Road Yard and the New Forest Show at the end of July each year. The monthly Verderers’ Court, which has a more formal status than these other social events, is also important for upholding the historic governance of the Forest. These are all important forms of ‘social capital’ that reinforce the sense of community amongst commoners, with other residents and also potentially with visitors.

Sensory experiences and perceptions

The way that people appreciate ‘intrinsic’ public goods like nature beauty, cultural heritage and wildlife is strongly influenced by their sensory experiences (sights, sounds and smells) and perceptions (knowledge and values). It is these that generate the feelings of peace, wildness, wonder or exhilaration that people may feel in natural greenspaces, contributing to their wellbeing.

The Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) of the New Forest seeks to capture these qualities and show how they vary across the National Park. The LCA describes 18 distinct character areas, made up of 13 character types. The large scale of the Open Forest means that most of it is encompassed by five character areas and three character types.

MAP 5 Landscape Character Areas of the New Forest

Key list (1–27): Martin and Tidpit Down; Martin and Whitsbury Open Farmland; Damerham and Rockbourne Valley; Wooded Sandleheath Farmland; Ringwood Forest; Upper Avon Valley; Lower Avon Valley; Poulner Woods and Pastures; Landford Forest Farmlands; West Wellow Heaths and Commons; Copythorne Forest Farmlands; Hythe and Ashurst Forest Farmlands; Waterside Parishes; Fawley Refinery Complex; North West Solent Estates; Lymington and Pennington Coastal Plain; Barton And Milford Coastal Plain; Sway Pasture and Residential Settlements; Bransgore Woods And Pastures; Southern Heath and Forest; Northern Heath and Forest; Furzey Woodland and Villages; New Forest Central Woodlands; Lymington River LCA; Beaulieu Heath; Beaulieu River LCA; Eastern Forest Heaths.

MAP 6 The dark night skies in the National Park compared with neighbouring urban areas

Each pixel shows the level of radiance (night light) shining up into the night sky. These have been categorised into colour bands to distinguish between different light levels. The percentage of pixels that fall within each band is shown as a % in the chart above. CPRE and LUC figures.

5. Conclusions

This report has applied the concepts and methodology of the natural capital approach to one of the UK’s most special and valued landscapes, the New Forest National Park. It is one of the first such assessments, as recommended by the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, and takes place at a crucial time. This final section draws out the main findings from the report and the process of preparing it.

1. Applying the concepts of public goods and natural capital to the New Forest

• Stakeholder support. There was strong support and broad census from the organisations involved in this study that the concepts of public goods and natural capital are helpful and can be readily applied to the New Forest. It proved relatively easy to agree a list of key public goods which reflect the definitions being used by Defra for the ELM and which also draw on the special qualities of the National Park.
• National guidance. There is little guidance from bodies such as Defra, Natural England or the Natural Capital Committee on how natural capital can be applied at a relatively fine landscape scale to an area like the New Forest. Given that Defra wishes the new ELM to be based on the natural capital approach, new guidance and case study examples would be helpful.
• Defining natural capital assets. This study has found it essential to include an assessment of both natural and human resources in order to properly describe the New Forest’s natural capital assets. This is because the maintenance of natural capital relies on systems of management (e.g. commoning) that combine natural and human resources to provide the natural capital assets that society values, and which deliver public goods. Again, this is not adequately covered in national guidance and if natural capital is to underpin the ELM, an agreed approach will be essential.

2. Analysis of the stock of natural capital

• The methodology. This study applied the methodology used in natural capital valuation of measuring the extent and condition of each natural capital asset. It also sought to describe changes in stock which, though not strictly required in natural capital valuation, is an important consideration in policy development.
• Extent. There is already good spatial (GIS) data for the New Forest to describe the amount and location of most natural resources. The same may not apply outside National Parks and other high-value landscapes where environmental data is often more patchy or dispersed amongst organisations. The concept of ‘extent’ is less clear when applied to human resources, although text descriptions of what constitutes each type of resource may be sufficient for the purpose.
• Condition. The concept of the condition of natural capital was readily understood by people participating in the study, but obtaining robust evidence was more challenging, usually because of a lack of recent and sufficiently fine-grained survey data. Nevertheless, assessments of condition can be made and justified more-or-less objectively, based on expert judgements. This study considers the current condition of most of the New Forest’s natural capital to be generally good. This should be seen in comparison with the landscapes surrounding the New Forest where most natural capital is in a poorer condition. It is a reflection of the large scale and intactness of the Forest and its habitats.
• Change. As with condition, the study has found that there is patchy evidence on recent changes to natural capital. Of greater relevance is the likelihood of future change, which requires subjective judgement. An important conclusion, which may not be sufficiently clear from the main body of this report, is that the generally good condition of most of the Forest’s natural capital is heavily dependent on current policies and support schemes and would be extremely fragile if these policies or schemes were withdrawn. This applies particularly to commoning which has been supported both by the Basic Payment Scheme and the Verderer’s Grazing Scheme (and HLS schemes on surrounding commons), which are ending soon. This threat does not emerge sufficiently strongly by simply following the ‘stock of natural capital’ methodology.
• Tensions between public goods. On its own, the methodology for describing natural capital does not draw out the tensions between different public goods (for instance the impacts of high levels of recreation on biodiversity and tranquillity). However, the assessment of condition, and the reasons for poor condition, provide a way into this analysis.
• Providing an overall assessment that highlights priorities. A visual summary of the relationship between public goods and natural capital in the New Forest, and the key measures of this natural capital, is provided in Figure 7. This aims to make it easier to draw out the significance of different natural capital assets to each of the public goods, and to identify where there are opportunities to increase the condition or extent of individual assets. However, it is, by necessity, a simplification of a more complicated picture – particularly in terms of the summary judgements on condition and change which might be open to challenge and interpretation.

3. Using the natural capital approach to develop more effective schemes in the Forest

• Context. As already noted, the main driver for this study has been the completion of the Higher Level Scheme agreements on the Open Forest (and subsequently the Basic Payment Scheme) and the desire by organisations in the New Forest to help Defra develop a suitable successor, through its Environmental Land Management scheme.
• Application at a landscape scale. One of Defra’s core principles for the new scheme is that it should be based on the natural capital approach. Current guidance and most existing studies categorise natural capital in a very simple way (based on high level habitat types). This study has shown how the approach can be used at a finer level to categorise and describe natural capital in a way that recognises local characteristics and management systems. If this can be done in a protected landscape as unique and special as the New Forest, it should be applicable in all other English landscapes.
• Limitations of the approach so far. This study has shown how natural capital can be used to produce a consistent ‘Asset Register’ of the difference elements that are needed to deliver public goods. This is essentially an extension of the ‘Farm Environment Plans’ that underpinned agreements under the Higher Level Scheme. It would be disappointing if the natural capital approach could not be developed further, beyond the assessment of existing stock, to deliver more effective and ambitious agreements.
• Opportunities for enhancement. As noted above, the approach tested out in this report has not been particularly effective at drawing attention to future opportunities and constraints. However, the scale of change to the Government’s agri-environmental policy that is anticipated as a result of Brexit, and the increased ambition in the 25 Year Environment Plan, mean that the new scheme will need to address both of these. A natural capital approach could help to do this by identifying what natural capital is at risk and also how public goods can be enhanced by supporting more and better-quality natural capital. This would require a deliberative process of discussion with stakeholders, prioritising which policy interventions are needed to address impending threats and the considerable opportunities that exist to broaden and enhance public goods from the New Forest’s natural capital.

MAP 6 The dark night skies in the National Park compared with neighbouring urban areas

Each pixel shows the level of radiance (night light) shining up into the night sky. These have been categorised into colour bands to distinguish between different light levels. The percentage of pixels that fall within each band is shown as a % in the chart above. CPRE and LUC figures.

6. Bibliography

This document draws on a research, policy documents and other evidence from a range of sources, including the following.

Papers on natural capital and ecosystem services

• Natural Capital Committee (2017). How to do it: a natural capital workbook. April 2017.
• Lusardi J, Rive P, Waters, RD and Craven J (2018). Natural Capital Indicators: for defining and measuring change in natural capital. Natural England Research Report, Number 076 (NERR076). September 2018.
• Medcalf K and Bell G (2014). New Forest National Park and 20km surrounding Area Ecosystem Assessment. Report by Environment Systems Ltd to the New Forest National Park Authority and Partners. September 2014.
• Deane, R and Walker A (2018). Towards a Register of Exmoor’s Natural Capital. Report for the Exmoor Society. May 2018. www.exmoorsociety.com/content/publications/reports-2
• White C, Dunscombe R, Dvarskas A, Eves C, Finisdore J, Kieboom E, Maclean I, Obst C, Rowcroft P, and Silcock P (2015). Developing ecosystem accounts for protected areas in England and Scotland: New Forest National Park Summary Report. Report by AECOM and partners to DEFRA and The Scottish Government. October 2015.

Key documents setting strategic policy objectives in the New Forest

• New Forest National Park Authority (2015). Partnership Plan for the New Forest National Park. An update of the National Park Management with actions for 2015-2020. November 2015.
• New Forest National Park Local Plan 2016-2036. www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/planning/local-plan
• Forestry England (2008). The Crown Lands Management Plan 2008-2013.
• New Forest SAC Management Plan (2001). Report by English Nature for the SAC Partnership Parts 1-3 and Appendices.

Papers on public goods derived from the natural environment

• Hejnowicz A and Hartley S (2018). New directions: A public goods approach to agricultural policy post-Brexit. University of York. March 2018. www.brexitenvironment.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/03/Public_Goods_Report_Final.pdf
• Dwyer J, Short C, Berriet-Solliec M, Gael-Lataste F, Pham H-V, Affleck M, Courtney P and Déprés C (2015). Public Goods and Ecosystem Services from Agriculture and Forestry – a conceptual approach. Report WP1.1 from the Pegasus Project.

4. Overall summary linking the New Forest’s natural capital to its public goods

The overall findings of this study, in terms of the way that a full range of natural capital assets deliver public goods on the New Forest’s commons, can be summarised in a matrix (figure 9). This seeks to simplify the information provided in section 2 of the report. It should be emphasised that the ‘scoring’ of condition and change is, for the most part, based on expert judgements and has not been subject to extensive consultation. Nevertheless, it may provide a helpful visual tool to identify overall patterns and priorities.

9. Matrix linking the New Forest’s natural capital assets to the public goods it provides to the nation

Squares indicate role of natural capital in delivering public goods:

• Asset has a significant role in delivering public goods
• Asset may have a significant role, depending on condition and location. This may include the mitigation of negative impacts that would occur if the asset was not present in its current extent and condition.