Wet Wet Wet: Improving wetland habitats in the New Forest National Park

This article, written by Nick Tomalin (Conservation Officer, RSPB), highlights some of the valuable work delivered by Freshwater Habitats Trust and landowners, in collaboration with the New Forest Catchment Partnership to improve New Forest wetland habitats. 

At the end of June, I spent a fascinating day in the company of the New Forest Catchment Partnership. The Partnership is run jointly by the National Park Authority and the Freshwater Habitats Trust (FHT), with the aim of co-ordinating efforts to help improve wet habitats in the New Forest for wildlife by addressing threats such as water quality, quantity and the naturalness of the channel in which the water runs. It involves working with local communities and organisations to identify opportunities to improve the health of freshwater habitats including ponds and fens, streams, rivers, lakes and wet woodlands.

The New Forest catchment is an area of separate, unconnected streams rather than a single river system. It contains many small rivers and streams which begin in boggy heathland mires, as well as small lakes, numerous ponds and coastal saltmarshes. These water bodies are some of the most important areas for wildlife in the UK and Europe. This is recognised by the New Forest Ramsar declaration, which is a designation given to the world’s best wetland areas. Most people wouldn’t think of the New Forest as a wetland – especially not in this prolonged dry spell – but in the pools, bogs, rivers and lakes we are privileged to have some truly outstanding wetland habitats

Innovation at Teddy's Farm

The purpose of our site visit was not to survey the best of the best, but to see and discuss individual projects that are aiming to improve the water environment. First, we visited Teddy’s Farm near Brockenhurst, to look at innovative ways to manage wastewater. Teddy runs a seasonal campsite and has introduced composting toilets and a willow evapotranspiration system. The toilets separate solids and liquids, and the solids decompose down until they can be used as a fertiliser. The liquids run down into the evapotranspiration system, along with grey water from showers and washing up facilities. Here it feeds growing willow trees, which filter out the chemicals from shower gels, shampoos and washing up detergents, and transfer the water back to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration from the willow leaves and the ground. The whole system is closed, requiring no water inputs and leaving no additional waste that would require collection.

- Willow Evapotranspiration Bed at Teddy's Farm

Re-thinking septic tanks

Our second visit was to a small stream near Hatchet Pond, where restoration work has been done by Forestry England. The plan was to reconnect the small stream to its historic channel, but pre-restoration surveys showed the presence of fool’s water cress, an aquatic plant which is pollution tolerant. This led to further monitoring, which showed that phosphorus levels were very high. The head of the stream receives discharge from several properties which are not on mains sewerage. Whilst legislation is catching up, old off-mains systems could be leaking nutrients into these important wet habitats, where they can be damaging at high concentrations. FHT commissioned a New Forest-wide study by Footprint Ecology to investigate which properties have mains access and identify where the septic tanks might be. This has identified hotspots, from which it will be possible to target areas which could be having an impact on key wetlands. Further work is needed, but upgrading septic tanks can be very expensive and the Forest has limited space for properties on the edge of designated sites to install more modern systems.

- Coral Necklace in the New Forest

Eel passage at Cadland Estate

Our final visit was to see a newly installed culvert at a site near Blackfield. The culvert was needed to stop an access track from eroding as the stream washed over it. The area includes wet woodland and fen, and surveys are picking up a range of interesting aquatic invertebrates. Eels are known to be using the stream here, and so the culvert had to be designed as an eel pass. Two concrete tubes were installed at different heights to allow eels to use them with varying water levels, and the inside of the tubes was coated in a resin bonded pea shingle, which creates turbulence in the water and grip for the eels to move through them. This has maintained access for both people and wildlife in this area, and further work is ongoing to improve management of the fen and wet woodland. The culverts (and much more) have been funded by a number of bodies including the Environment Agency through its Water Environment Improvement Fund (WEIF) programme, The Species Survival Fund delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency, and the National Grid Landscape Enhancement Initiative Fund.

Whilst we weren’t specifically out to look for wildlife, we did still spot a range of interesting species, including various dragonflies and damselflies around the waterways, a nesting pair of pied wagtail in a barn at Teddy’s Farm, and coral necklace, a rare flowering plant that relies on seasonally wet areas on grazed grassland within heaths.

These are just three small areas within the Forest where work is underway to protect the internationally important wetlands found here. Often these issues are out of the public eye or fall between gaps in regulation and enforcement, but the impact of some simple changes can be significant. They are great examples of conservation bodies, statutory organisations and landowners working together for the good of the New Forest environment, and of how the Catchment Partnership is achieving is objectives.

- Eel pass at Cadland Estate