The area of heathland has declined substantially in southern England since the eighteenth century but recent incentives and financial encouragement through lottery grants and agri-environment schemes have promoted restoration projects.

A restoration programme on three contrasting habitats was carried out within Burnham Beeches NNR in southern England, using managed vs control areas to aid evaluation of the effectiveness of the management.

Annual surveys of the botanical composition within restored and control areas up to 15 years post-management was used to evaluate the responses of (i) overall species richness, (ii) number and cover of target/indicator species, and (iii) movement of community floristic composition towards target communities defined using a simple method based on the National Vegetation Classification.

Both wet heath/mire sites showed similar outcomes with both showing increases in species richness and positive indicators but with different species or groups in the latter case. The open acid grassland/heath site showed a delayed response to restoration management until grazing was introduced when both species richness and positive indicators increased. The grass-heath-scrub sites showed different responses with one showing relatively little change compared with the control but the other showing a rapid increase in both species richness and positive indicators, particularly following the introduction of grazing.

Communities approaching the targets have been reached in two areas but for the other three, after initial movement towards the targets, the communities subsequently drifted away. Most reached the target ‘score’ along axis 1 of the ordination, indicating that the most important target core species had been approximated but that subtle differences in community composition persisted.

Restoration techniques such as grazing and bracken and scrub control are discussed along with the impact of visitor pressure. Grazing is beneficial in diversifying communities, but over-grazing coupled with high visitor pressure may be the reason why one plot has moved away from the target. Ongoing management is required to control woody species. Setting targets helped to critically evaluate the results of the restoration work which was achieved by removal of trees without any ground preparation such as seeding.

自 18 世纪以来，英格兰南部的荒地面积大幅减少，但最近通过彩票赠款和农业环境计划提供的奖励和财政鼓励促进了恢复项目。

在英格兰南部的伯纳姆山毛榉 NNR 内对三个对比鲜明的栖息地进行了恢复计划，使用管理与控制区域来帮助评估管理的有效性。

在管理后长达 15 年的恢复和控制区域内植物组成的年度调查被用于评估 (i) 整体物种丰富度，(ii) 目标/指示物种的数量和覆盖率，以及 (iii)使用基于国家植被分类的简单方法定义的目标社区的社区植物区系组成。

两个湿荒地/沼泽地都显示出相似的结果，两者都显示物种丰富度和积极指标的增加，但在后一种情况下物种或群体不同。当物种丰富度和阳性指标均增加时，开放的酸性草地/荒地对恢复管理显示出延迟响应，直到引入放牧。草丛-荒地-灌木站点显示出不同的响应，与对照相比，一个显示出相对较小的变化，而另一个显示出物种丰富度和阳性指标的快速增加，特别是在引入放牧之后。

已经在两个地区达到了接近目标的社区，但对于其他三个，在最初朝着目标移动后，社区随后逐渐远离。大多数达到了沿排序轴 1 的目标“分数”，表明最重要的目标核心物种已经近似，但群落组成的细微差异仍然存在。

讨论了诸如放牧、蕨菜和灌木控制等恢复技术以及游客压力的影响。放牧有利于社区多样化，但过度放牧加上高游客压力可能是一个地块偏离目标的原因。需要持续管理以控制木本物种。设定目标有助于批判性评估恢复工作的结果，恢复工作是通过在没有任何地面准备（例如播种）的情况下移除树木而实现的。