European lowland heaths have declined by up to 80% due to land use change and lack of management.
There has been considerable research into the restoration of this threatened habitat. However, long-term
outcomes of restoration are poorly understood, especially in situations where past agricultural land use
imposes severe constraints on community re-assembly. In 1989 a large-scale experiment was established
to examine the effectiveness of five treatments to restore heathland on formerly productive grassland: (i)
natural regeneration; (ii) herbicide application to facilitate regeneration; (iii) cultivation and application
of seed-rich heathland vegetation; (iv) soil removal and incorporation of heathland topsoil; and (v)
heathland translocation. After 17 years the pH of the unamended agricultural soil remained significantly
higher than that of the adjacent heathland. All treatments showed different trajectories of vegetation
change in the long-term. Natural colonisation by heathland species was slow due to seed limitation,
resulting in formation of an acid grassland community. Heathland community assembly was not facilitated
by destruction of the initial grassland with herbicide. Incorporation of topsoil had an intermediate
effect on pH reduction. This may explain the subsequent failure of the plant community to assemble in
the anticipated proportions, and the dominance of leguminous scrub species (Ulex spp.). Turf translocation
was effective in reducing pH to the required range and restoring the heathland community in the
long-term. However, this technique should only be considered as a means of ‘rescue’ when habitat
destruction is otherwise unavoidable. The only practical and sustainable means of increasing heathland
extent on former farmland is the application of seed-bearing vegetation cut as part of routine management.
However, this technique needs refining in order to establish the full range of characteristic heathland
species