The surveys comprised a series of habitat condition assessments as part of the opportunity mapping for pilot Nature Recovery Focus Areas in the south of the national park. The pilot Nature Recovery Focus Areas are based on river catchments and contain a significant extent of designated moorland and priority moorland habitats, the majority of which is managed as common land.

The survey sites included large areas designated as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Scheduled Monuments and Premier Archaeological Landscapes. The aim was to provide baseline ecological information using Natural England’s Baseline Evaluation of Higher Tier Agreements (BEHTA) methodology, which had not previously been applied across these areas. A secondary objective was to use the survey as an opportunity to ground-truth mapping produced through remote-sensing by the South West Partnership for Environment and Economic Prosperity (SWEEP).

The results of the survey included providing detailed information from which to measure the success of future nature enhancement interventions and environmental land management schemes. The results also helped to identify areas of opportunity, guide the next steps and provide information on which to base discussions about the management of the habitats. The work was not intended as a replacement for, or to enable comparison with, Natural England’s monitoring of designated wildlife sites using the Common Standards Monitoring (CSM) methodology, but to provide additional information to sit alongside other survey results.