North Warren & Aldringham Walks – Suffolk Sandlings

More that 80% of the UK’s heathland has been lost over the last 200 years. In 1994, the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) identified lowland heath as a priority habitat. In Suffolk an area known as the Suffolk Sandlings heath runs from Ipswich to Lowestoft and this has now become much reduced and fragmented.
It is the restoration of areas of heathland by coppicing gorse and removing invasive scrub & bracken and the erection of new stock-proof fencing at the North Warren Nature Reserve (a special part of the overall Suffolk Sandlings) which is the subject of this application. It is important to manage the heathland / acid grassland here for the benefit of woodlark, nightjar and silver-studded blue butterfly (UK and LBAP species), the skylark, linnet and lunar yellow underwing moth (BAP species) as well as for regionally important numbers of nightingale, Dartford warblers and localised ant-lion (a type of lacewing)