Dunes are more than just piles of sand blocking the way to a beach. These are some of Britain’s most precious and threatened habitats, a sanctuary for rare plants and wildlife adapted to living in sand, such as fen orchids, natterjack toads and sand lizards.
But sand dunes have declined by a third since 1900, under assault from aggressive invading plants such as sea buckthorn, and nitrogen pollution has enriched the poor nutrient soils, driving out native dune plants. The management of dunes has also been bungled by fencing and hedging them in to keep the sand blowing away. That stopped the dunes from moving and shifting, so they became carpeted in grass and scrub; a healthy dune needs open areas of sand that can blow in the wind, with depressions where birds and amphibians can shelter.
Dynamic Dunescapes, a huge project run by conservation charities and Natural England, is halfway through rejuvenating nine of the major dune areas in England and Wales. Diggers have removed topsoil, scrub, bracken, grasses and other invading plants, allowing the sand underneath to blow in the wind, with gulleys dug into the dunes to free up more sand.
