Dorset

Duration: Nine Months

Placement Host: The HEDGE Project (Heathland in East Dorset, Grazing & Enhancement Project) with additional regular secondments to DUHGP (the Dorset Urban Heath Grazing Partnership).

Location: Numerous SSSI/SNCI/LNR Sites across SE Dorset, near Wimborne/Bournemouth/Poole. 

Landholding:   HEDGE: 200Ha, DUHGP: 1,000Ha+

Main Grazing: Wet & Dry Lowland Heath with additional improved and semi-improved grazing pastures. DUHGP also have significant areas of coastal salt marsh and water meadows including some unique urban cliff-side grazing areas on Bournemouth seafront.

Livestock:HEDGE: 24 Pedigree Red Devon Cattle, 45 Poll Dorset Sheep, 8 Icelandic Ponies

DUHGP: 50 x Shetland Cattle, 13 x British White Cattle, 6 x Galloway Cross Cattle, 6 x Ponies, 10 x Feral Goats

The Project:   The HEDGE Project Team directly manages a number of SSSI/SNCI areas under Natural England’s Higher Level Stewardship program. Much of the land area comprises old Forestry Commission sites which are being restored into high quality heathland habitat as the tree plantations are thinned and felled. Some elements of the grazing are under full organic management, whilst other elements use a conventional, extensive grazing and land management approach where it is necessary to bring invasive bracken and rhododendron under control. The core HEDGE team is quite small, but very flexible. All members of the team have good input into the development of work plans and experience the complete range of countryside management tasks; we love the variety in our work. DUHGP are a much larger, mullti-agency partnership managing a range of habitats on behalf of the local authorities and key conservation charities. When attached to DUHGP, the trainee will work mainly alongside the lead grazing officer assisting on the full span of livestock management tasks throughout the year.

The Work:   The successful candidate will normally be based at the Hedge Project Home Farm site close to Wimborne in East Dorset, deploying out daily to the various grazing sites to carry out habitat and livestock management tasks. The precise nature of the trainee’s work will change throughout the heathland and livestock management calendar. Subject to the trainee’s experience, ability and ambition the work-based training will include all elements of cattle, sheep, pony and goat management, fencing maintenance, grassland management including hay production, heathland scrub control, tree felling, firewood processing, chemical control of bracken/rhododendron, planning and executing wildlife surveys and completion of a project to examine the relative performance of Red Devon, British White and Shetland cattle on marginal grazing sites. In practice the challenge is to fit all of this range of activities into the time available; trainees will be expected to work hard and learn quickly in order to gain the necessary competence and/or qualifications. The trainee will be attached directly to the DUHGP grazing team on a weekly basis and on additional days whenever any significant livestock management tasks are underway. This will allow them to see different ways of working and to network with a number of other conservation employers; the Spring 2011 GAP trainee gained a full time paid ranger’s post with Bournemouth Borough Council (part of the DUHGP).