Managing the reserve

Managing the reserve

Designing is a complex and intricate task. It is... thinking in relationships.

(From The New Vision, by designer and photographer, László Moholy-Nagy, 1938)

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Not long ago, a guest speaker at one of our evening meetings said that in his opinion a policy of planting native trees was misguided. There were so many other and useful trees from elsewhere in the world that it would be denying oneself not to plant them anywhere they would thrive. Since this man was a professional expert on trees, we listened politely but we do not share his point of view.

Reserves like Lingfield Wildlife Area are not there as planting zones for trees, whether alien or naturally-occurring species. They exist to preserve or recreate ecosystems - the interacting combinations of species and habitats that give an area its special character.

That area can be just a few metres square or tens of square miles. What makes each ecosystem different is the mixture of the creatures and plants in it - from the smallest bacterium upwards - together with the terrain, soil, underlying rocks, climate, amount and direction of sunlight falling on it, prevailing wind, water supply and, if it is not a complete wilderness, the way the area is managed.

Sometimes that character is unique. At LWA it is simply threatened, which is reason enough for us to do what we do. As our objective states (see here), we aim to create an area in keeping with the character of the local countryside, the old Lingfield Common. We use native trees and plants for two reasons, therefore:

because that's what would have been found here before World War II (up to about 60 years ago, in other words), when British agriculture still used many old methods

because they are the species that best allow these necessary communities to establish themselves and survive.

The following pages expand on this outline. They tell you who is involved in running the reserve and give the text of our governing documents. They also explain our management principles and list the plant species we use. The habitats on the reserve are described here.

Centenary Fields

These, which we also now manage, were set up on slightly different lines. The Centenary Fields committee of the Parish Council showed great flair and imagination in creating this reserve. It adopted a freer approach than the Lingfield Wildlife Area committee. This has included erecting large wooden structures and installing furniture and signs. It planted many introduced and cultivated species as well as native ones, in closely managed settings.

The result is a widely varied set of habitats, all designed with human comfort and enjoyment in mind, that effectively form a large wildlife garden. This will not change under the new arrangements. The Lingfield Wildlife Area committee manages Centenary Fields in the same way its founders did.