Hello!
This is my first article... if you can call it that?
Hi! I’m Katherine. At the beginning of 2025 I started a part-time PhD studying ancient grasslands at Edge Hill University. Following the completion of my MSc in Conservation Management in 2019 I had decided that I wanted to do a PhD, but only once I had found a topic that I felt really interested me and that I felt was truly important.
As no topics took my fancy immediately after my MSc, I began working at Edge Hill University as a Research Support Administrator under a fixed-term contract where I got to read and assist with some fantastic research projects being undertaken at the university, including many on grasslands. This would transpire to be some exceptionally useful experience, though I didn’t know it at the time.
After my contract at Edge Hill ended, I began working as an ecological consultant first at a large multi-disciplinary firm with international outreach and later, at a small but growing consultancy based in Formby, Merseyside. At the time that I joined there were only six employees including myself. But it was here, at Tyrer Ecological Consultants in Formby, that my vision of what I would like my PhD to be on really began to crystalise.
Working in Ecological Consultancy means often seeing ecologically valuable sites being lost or degraded result of developments. A lot of the time they can be protected i.e., when the particular habitat is an Annex I habitat, is a Priority Habitat or falls within an area covered by statutory protection, for example. And more recently, the introduction of the Biodiversity Gain Planning Condition means that developers must achieve a 10% net-gain in biodiversity units post-development with the loss of baseline habitats being scored depending on their ecological value, strategic significance and distinctiveness. This is a planning condition that reduces the impact that developers have on our natural environment and, when done right, yields tangible positive outcomes for biodiversity.
The Biodiversity Gain Requirements (Irreplaceable Habitat) Regulations 2024 list eight irreplaceable habitats
Blanket bog
Lowland fens
Limestone pavements
Coastal sand dunes
Ancient woodland
Ancient trees and veteran trees
Spartina saltmarsh swards
Mediterranean saltmarsh scrub
These habitats are considered ‘irreplaceable’ owing to the manner in which they have come to be meaning they cannot be created by man - i.e., they arise from natural geological processes (e.g., limestone pavement) or are maintained by natural physical processes (e.g., coastal sand dunes). Alternatively, they may be classed as ‘irreplaceable’ owing to the time it take for the habitat to accrue the value that it has - hence why ancient woodland and ancient trees are afforded irreplaceable habitat status.
Why then, would the same protection not be afforded to ancient grasslands? They, after all, accrue great value over time and continuity of management? They are some of our most species-rich habitats? They sequester carbon in their soils? They support pollinator networks? I could go on.
Ancient grasslands are likely not afforded the same protections as ancient woodlands as there is, at present, no agreed and scientifically tested definition of an ancient grassland. If you cannot define a habitat, you cannot protect it. If there is no definition, it cannot be categorised and it cannot therefore be identified in the field.
So when one day I was speaking with my soon to be supervisor, he mentioned that he would like to work on the creation of an ancient grassland indicator species list, the years working in consultancy coalesced with my experience working as a Research Support Administrator and I knew I had found the project I wanted to do.
I haven’t explained what my PhD really aims to do in this post, if you would like to read more about it, please visit my website: ancientgrasslands.neocities.org where the whole project, the background and my aims are explained in detail.
I’ll be posting here, when time allows, documenting my PhD or interesting updates in the world of ancient grasslands / grassland / ecology in general. Please do subscribe if you would like to be updated when I post!! You can also find me on BlueSky (@katherine.judson.bsky.social) where I will occasionally post snippets and thoughts relating to my PhD. Though I imagine it will mainly be pictures of plants and insects that interest me!