In recent weeks, Dartmoor's iconic ponies have been at the centre of significant media attention and public debate. We want to use this blog to set out clearly what has been reported, what is happening in reality, and what we are doing next.
What has been reported
We have already corrected false claims made in media articles last week suggesting that Natural England is proposing to cull Dartmoor ponies as part of biodiversity plans for the moor. We understand why these headlines have caused distress to pony owners, to people who love Dartmoor and to communities across the South West who have a deep connection to these animals.
We continue to be clear that no cull of Dartmoor ponies has been proposed, approved or is being pursued by Natural England. We recognise, though, that the situation which has led to this coverage is real and complex, and deserves a more careful explanation than headlines allow.
What’s actually happening
Dartmoor is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and one of England's most ecologically important landscapes. The moorland habitats it supports - blanket bog, heath and grassland - depend on the right kind and level of grazing, by sheep, cattle and ponies, to remain in good condition. When grazing levels are too high, sensitive plant communities are damaged. When they are too low, vegetation such as Molinia (purple moor grass) can encroach over time, reducing both biodiversity and forage for livestock.
Dartmoor ponies are a native breed and are an integral part of that grazing system. They have shaped the moor for centuries and Natural England absolutely values their role in it. The difficulty is that, in some areas, grazing levels are higher than the habitat can sustain in the long term. This is not a new problem and it is not one with a simple solution. This is about getting the right type of grazing, in the right place and at the right time of year. Across large, unfenced areas this has to be supported by viable farming to be sustainable.
Managing livestock numbers on common land is a genuinely complicated matter. It involves the rights of commoners, the economics of traditional upland farming, animal welfare obligations, and the ecological needs of protected habitats. These things can pull in different directions and any approach that ignores that complexity risks causing harm to farming livelihoods, to wildfire risk, or to the very habitats we are all trying to protect.
Natural England strongly believes that a viable pony population is essential for nature recovery on Dartmoor, as well as for their huge cultural and aesthetic value.
Balancing this with all the other interests such as sheep and cattle farming will take a strong partnership effort over the coming years – there is no quick fix.
What we are doing
We are working with Defra on the broader policy questions this situation has raised, including whether current frameworks adequately support the kind of land management that Dartmoor needs.
Natural England is working closely with Defra, the Commoners’ Council, pony owners, the Dartmoor Land Use Management Group and the Dartmoor National Park on a considered, collaborative approach. We are holding a series of meetings with them in the coming weeks.
To achieve our goals of sustainable farming and nature recovery on Dartmoor will take time and require a lot of continued collaboration. There are no quick fixes. NE is committed to playing our part.
Our people on the ground
Our Local Team includes people dedicated to working on Dartmoor and they regularly meet with commoners, pony keepers, farmers and conservation groups. They know the moor, have built relationships with those who live and work there over many years and understand that the ecology of Dartmoor and the livelihoods of the people who manage it are not separate concerns.
There is a genuine, shared desire among the people closest to Dartmoor to find workable solutions and we look forward to working with all parties to safeguard the future of ponies on the moor.
Next steps
We will provide a further update once our upcoming stakeholder meetings have taken place. if you have questions or concerns, you can contact us at customer.feedback@naturalengland.org.uk
A note on comments
We welcome comments on our blog, but please keep the conversation respectful. Comments are moderated in line with our policy.
19 comments
Comment by Marcia colley posted on
Don’t catagorise ponies as livestock.. or subsidise them as well as sheep & cattle then farmers won’t be faced with keeping profitable sheep or non profitable ponies -(most would chose profitable and have to destroy the ponies they’re responsible for)
Comment by Phil Abel posted on
Still not taking account of your actions to reduce livestock units means selling ponies ie a cull.
Comment by Richard Watson posted on
The degradation of Dartmoor's ecology is the result of decades of intensive grazing by sheep. Sheep nibble endlessly at delicate plants preventing them from flowering and setting seed. Tree and shrub seedlings have their leaves nibbled away by sheep preventing any chance of natural regeneration. Sheep also damage peat and compact soils thereby increasing flood risk. The answer is to reduce sheep numbers massively - by 70% at least - and to replace them judiciously with Dartmoor ponies and hardy cattle. That way we can have a healthy moor alive with wild flowers, trees, shrubs, wetlands and an abundance of wildlife. This is a national park: nature, wildlife, landscape, flood prevention, carbon storage and recreation should take precedence over intensive lamb production. If that means subsidising commoners not to graze sheep then so be it.
Comment by Jocelyn Tomkins posted on
Please can you reassure all concerned parties that no policies will be enforced without complete transparency, shared and comprehensive approval and with plenty of notice.
Are you able to distribute details of Natural England’s Local Team so that we can see their proactiviry in working with concerned Dartmoor Hill Pony owners.
Thank you
Comment by Jane Malbasa posted on
I am encouraged to read that you are working with local stakeholders to find a workable solution for the future of the Dartmoor hill ponies, and relieved to read that there will be less time pressure to implement policies that are clearly problematic.
You do not mention the Dartmoor Hill Ponies Association in the list of individuals and organisations you will be meeting and working collaboratively with.
DHPA have been responsible for raising public awareness of the risks to the ponies from previous proposals, and they are the organisation thousands of concerned individuals turn to for daily updates and information on this matter.
I hope their exclusion from your list is an oversight. It is essential that they play a full and active role in finding a solution, as expert representatives of the 215,000 current signatories to the petition.
Comment by Joss Hibbs posted on
A Response from the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association:
The Dartmoor Hill Pony Association welcomes Natural England’s recognition that the situation which has led to significant media coverage in recent weeks is ‘real’. It also welcome’s Natural England’s recognition that the semi-wild Dartmoor Hill Ponies are ‘iconic’, ‘native’, an ‘integral part of (the moor’s) grazing system’ and ‘have shaped the moor for’ millennia. The Dartmoor Hill Pony Association also welcomes the recognition of a need for viable farming to be sustained, and that encroaching Molinia is caused by under-grazing.
Whereas Natural England states that ‘there is no quick fix’, the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association proposes that a commitment by Natural England to implement Recommendation 27 of the Fursdon Review (see below) would be an immediate and meaningful assurance that semi-wild Dartmoor Hill Pony numbers will not be further reduced by Natural England’s actions.
The complexity of balancing the rights of commoners, the economics of traditional upland farming, wildfire risks and the ecological needs of protected habitats was investigated by the Fursdon Review in 2023. Subsequently, the Dartmoor Land Use Management Group (DLUMG) has been set up to consider the implementation of Review recommendations and is due to report in 2027. The Dartmoor Hill Pony Association suggests that this is the correct process in which those complexities should be considered. Until such time as the DLUMG completes its work, the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association suggests it would be inappropriate to implement new ELM scheme contracts on Dartmoor commons and proposes that, as before, the terms of the current contracts are extended.
The Dartmoor Hill Pony Association notes that Natural England has not included the Association as a stakeholder in its investigative meetings. Given that the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association represents Dartmoor commoners keeping the semi-wild Dartmoor Hill Pony herds alongside their cattle and sheep on the commons of Dartmoor, important knowledge will be missed as a result.
The Dartmoor Hill Pony Association welcomes Natural England’s stated aim to safeguard the future for these numerically Endangered and genetically Rare, semi-wild ponies and therefore hopes Natural England will commit to the swift implementation of Recommendation 27 of the Fursdon Review:
"Dartmoor’s pony population is genetically important and invaluable for conservation grazing. Ponies & cattle should not be linked for the calculation of A-E agreement stocking rates and NE should not take actions likely to result in a decline in pony numbers."
Comment by Richard Watson posted on
Can NE please clarify what has happened to the work being led by Dr Hilary Cottam on the future of Dartmoor (and other upland areas)? This was announced early this year following discussions at the Oxford Farming Conference. How does Dr Cottam's work fit in to other reviews/consultations taking place? Thank you.
Comment by Richard Watson posted on
Towards a flourishing uplands: phase 1 - GOV.UK https://share.google/XO6Lpyb8hX824U6MR
Comment by sharon elizabeth aitken posted on
please help these ponies this is their place and has been for years,
Comment by Tara posted on
A simple question: if ponies are essential for nature recovery, why are they still counted in a way that could lead to their decline? Recommendation 27 seems the obvious next step. Please implement it before the 2026 autumn drifts or it will be too late.
Comment by Tara beckerley posted on
Please kindly rephrase your policy on counting ponies in with livestock, it forces the farmers and will have devastating effects on the ponies limited gene pool and as well them being a part of their ecosystem with eating the Molinia grass which is a fire hazard if left, it also impacts on the cultural identity of Dartmoor having been there for thousands of years. We only gave to look at what is happening to Australia Bumbies to know the populace are against slaughter of beloved wild ponies.
Comment by Andrea Livesey posted on
Please will Natural England commit to implement Recommendation 27 of the Fursdon Review. This would be an immediate assurance that semi-wild Dartmoor Hill Pony numbers will not be further reduced by Natural England’s actions. Right now the ponies have no assurances and this is unacceptable. Thank you
Comment by Alex Grayson posted on
I delivered this to the board of the Dartmoor National Park Authority at their AGM on Friday: I want to start with some words naturalist and journalist Alexander Fiske-Harrison sent to us recently:
The moment a bureaucracy decides that all grazers are merely “grazing units”, the singular thing dies first.
Sheep are economically protected because there are over a hundred thousand of them because they make money: there is an entire agricultural architecture behind them.
As with the cattle, functionally interchangeable, hardy imports with no indigenous connection.
But the Dartmoor Hill pony is something different: a genuinely localised semi-wild upland population dating back three and a half millennia into the Bronze Age.
In other words, the actual ponies standing out there in the rain are biologically more interesting than any stud book or agricultural contribution to GDP.
And the scary thing is their numbers. There are now fewer than a thousand left on the moor. That sounds healthy until you begin looking at herd structure and breeding mathematics. In horses, the bottleneck is stallions, not mares. Once you begin squeezing the number of active breeding males, you push a population into long-term genetic narrowing astonishingly fast. You do not immediately get five-legged foals and screaming deformity; you simply burn genetic capital quietly until one day you wake up and realise your “wild” pony is now effectively a conservation exhibit: a Dartmoor Panda.
Which is absurd, because unlike the panda, this would not be happening because the animal is intrinsically doomed, but because bureaucratic tidying and agricultural lobbying accidentally shoved it over the edge. Sheep and cattle make Dartmoor merely agricultural. Ponies make it mythic.
And we stand on the brink of losing them. Not because anyone hates them, but because the system cannot distinguish between a sheep, a cow and a living fragment of historical ecology.
* * *
This week Plymouth City Council passed the motion ‘Protecting the Dartmoor Ponies’ and we understand Devon County Council has a similar one scheduled for September, which may be too late, by the way.
We ask that DNPA, as a central stakeholder, writes to the secretary of state for DEFRA and Natural England, urging that the HLS scheme rolls on for another year, allowing the Fursdon Review to conclude, and that its Recommendation 27 (separating ponies from cattle) be implemented.
Protecting current herd numbers is immediately imperative!
Thank you.
There were no questions after my 3 minute presentation, so I didn't get to remind the members that the park was founded in 1953, in part because of its amazing biodiversity and 30,000 ponies (less than 5% of that now and on the endangered list). Also a reminder that the most valuable asset on Coca-Cola's balance sheet is the the brand. Large parts of the community and economy of Dartmoor and surrounds is tied to the global brand that the Dartmoor Pony is. Please - someone at NE/DEFRA think!
Comment by Alex Grayson posted on
Thank you for listening, thinking and doing the right thing. 🙂
Comment by Cathryn Blythe posted on
Please implement recommendation 27 and protect Dartmoor Ponies. The issues may be complex, but lives lost cannot be replaced.
Comment by Gail Mathie posted on
Do not count the Ponies as livestock
They are part of our heritage and are vital to the ecosystem of the moor
Comment by Jill Eastment posted on
Please implement Recommendation 27 and confirm in writing. Please ensure the ponies are protected under your policy. The autumn drifts approach. This iis now urgent and imperative.
Comment by Lorraine Ann Heron posted on
The Dartmoor Ponies are a cultural icon , and part of England's heritage, tourists visit to look and admire them they deserve protection as Pandas in China do .
Comment by Sally Clayden posted on
Sally Clayden 6th July
Please do not count the ponies as 'livestock' ( horrible description of gentle sensitive animals ).
Dartmoor is their home and always has been, many tourists love to see them.
I live near the moors and I have noticed that there are far fewer than 20 years ago.
They are beautiful site.
Thank you.
Comment by Richard posted on
Implement recommendation 27, save the ponies