Sustainable Management of Forests – Livestock Removal (PR22501E)

The aim of this Option

To encourage the appropriate management of native woodlands through the removal of livestock. This aims to encourage the development of 'favourable condition' within the woodland.

Rates of Support

These are Annually Recurrent Grants, the rates of which are shown on the Sustainable Management of Forests page

Eligibility criteria

You must own or lease the land
If you are a tenant or contractual licensee, you must discuss the proposed application with your landlord to make sure it does not break the conditions of your tenancy or licence, and submit a Landlord Notification Form with your Proposal.
If you have a tenancy or a licence with less than five years to run you must complete a Landlord Declaration form and ask your Landlord or the landowner to sign the declaration on that form.
This option applies only to native woodlands
You must have an approved Forest Plan for woodland areas over 100 hectares. For woodland areas less than 100 hectares a Management Plan is required at the time of application.
The woodland must be at least 1 hectare in size.
We will only approve operations for the number of years remaining in an existing Forest or Management Plan
All your proposed management work must comply with the UK Forestry Standard
The grant for this option has been calculated as a payment for income forgone from the loss of grazing income. You will not be required to provide details of the costs incurred due to removing the livestock. We will check that the site has been used for grazing and will expect you to maintain the boundary fences to ensure that livestock remain excluded.

Details you need to provide with your Proposal

Before your Proposal reaches the "Proposal Commit" stage you must provide:

Management Plan
For woodland areas less than 100 hectares a Management Plan or a completed Management Plan template
Forestry Outcome Plan
The Forestry Outcome Plan will ask for certain information so that we can assess your proposal. This will include:
The benefits that the removal of grazing stock will achieve
The attributes that you should consider are:

Tree Regeneration - aiming for the presence of native tree and shrub species characteristic of the site and locality. Aiming for non-native species to be absent or contained at existing or low levels
Stand and Vegetation Structure - aiming for a range of different age-classes and for some permanent open areas in the woodland. Aiming for improved ground and field vegetation layers
Herbivore impacts - aiming to control impacts of deer

A map
Showing the area where the livestock will be removed. To ensure you mark your map correctly, please use the Mapping Guidance

Claims and Inspections

The grant for Livestock Removal is an Annual Recurrent grant and can be paid for up to 10 years. You must complete the Single Application Form (SAF) to claim this funding.

Read more about making your claim and the deadline dates

Please note that you should keep evidence of actual costs/expenditure of the work you carry out each year so that we may inspect and verify that the costs exceeded the grant that you were paid.