Editing Chobham Common (section)

==Maintenance==
The survival of Chobham Common as an extensive area of lowland [[Heath (habitat)|heath]] is largely due to the historic isolation of the [[Chobham, Surrey|Chobham]] area where traditional [[heathland]] management continued until the early twentieth century. While [[turbary]] (turf cutting) was still practised on a small scale at the beginning of the twentieth century it had ceased to be an important factor in the management of the Common by that time. Rough [[grazing]] and the cutting of [[Calluna|heather]], [[gorse]] and small [[tree]]s began to decline after 1914 and had almost completely ended by the time of the [[Second World War]]. Photographic evidence and verbal reports indicate that during the early part of the twentieth century large tracts of ''[[Calluna vulgaris]]'' (heather) with extensive areas of wet [[Heath (habitat)|heath]] and open [[bog]] dominated the Common. There was little scrub and the only [[trees]] of any great size were at the Clump on Staple Hill and the Lone Pine to the south of the Beegarden.

===Management===
In 1984, [[Surrey County Council]] produced the first management plan for Chobham Common which acknowledged invading scrub, [[fire]] and [[erosion]] as the main threats to the site. The Surrey Trust for Nature Conservation (now renamed the [[Surrey Wildlife Trust]]) had carried out small-scale scrub clearance work from 1974 onwards and [[Surrey County Council]] began clearing scrub on the Common from the 1970s onwards; however despite their best efforts the scrub continued to advance. While describing [[birch]] and [[pine]] invasion on the Common as ''“Possibly the most serious problem for nature conservation”'' the 1984 Management Plan states, ''“Widespread invasion control is difficult to justify financially. Intervention management will therefore be limited to the more significant open habitats and places where an acceptable level of tree cover can be maintained at low cost”''.

From the late 1980s, a more aggressive approach to scrub management was adopted together with more active conservation management starting with the large scale annual events for schools and volunteers such as ''“Purge the Pine”'' and ''“Free Christmas Tree”'' events. While these events, which involved over 1,500 volunteers in some years, dramatically reduced the threat to the Common from [[pine]] invasion, [[birch]] remained a major threat to the site.

The 1992 Management Plan took a much more positive approach to [[Habitat conservation|conservation]] management of Chobham Common. In the same year the site was proposed as a [[national nature reserve (United Kingdom)|national nature reserve]] (NNR) and a substantial grant covering a ten-year period was awarded to [[Surrey County Council]] under the [[Countryside Stewardship Scheme]] for the management of 280 hectares of the Common. The scheme was extended to cover the whole [[national nature reserve (United Kingdom)|NNR]] for a further ten years in October 2002. At the time of writing at least seventeen hectares of scrub management takes place each year together with at least twenty hectares of [[habitat conservation|conservation]] mowing, and [[bracken]] control. Bare ground creation and [[Calluna|heather]] cutting, and [[pond]], scrape and pool creation are also carried out to enhance [[bio-diversity]]. The restoration of [[Habitat conservation|conservation]] grazing on Chobham Common is seen as a priority by site managers.