| Conservation Management |
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Whilst the conservation management priority is to provide access to visitors of graves and the listed monuments, the cemetery is also being managed as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI). The landscape management plan focuses on conserving the existing grassland and woodland habitats and improving their quality to benefit wildlife. The woodland is being managed through selective thinning; to improve the canopy structure and encourage biodiversity. Areas of scrub and bramble are being managed, not through total clearance, but through rotational cutting every three years. Scrub will be prevented from encroaching further onto the grassland. The majority of the grassland areas will be cut once annually, towards the end of the summer, when plants have set their seeds. These practices are put in place to favour the amazing diversity of wildlife which inhabits the cemetery. The nationally scarce plant ivy broomrape grows here and Arnos Vale Cemetery also has many nationally rare insects. During the 1970's and 1980's, mis-management and serious neglect of the entire site by the previous owner created numerous problems. This now requires close management. Below are a just a few examples of issues which have caused political contention and management constraints.
Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust would like to make this unique site a welcoming, safe and accessible environment for everybody to enjoy. With continued support from our valued long-term volunteers and from new interested groups and individuals, the Trust hopes to develop new and exciting projects within the landscape that are sympathetic and appropriate to the site's function and appearance. Subject to resources, we hope to install benches and seating areas, new steps, handrails, safety barriers and signage. We would like to get the most from our woodland resource, by possibly setting up a wood project to create hand-made products to sell from our on-line shop. One day we could run green wood-working courses. We already sell firewood and logs to local people and we will be developing this further in the future.
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ding to species-poor secondary woodland which, if left to spread, would lead to a decline in the diversity of species. Total removal of scrub and woodland habitats are neither desirable or viable. The landscape management plan has to balance this against the obvious primary use of the site as a cemetery.
distinctive feature of Arnos Vale Cemetery is the large amount of ivy. This was allowed to develop extensively to form substantial patches of scrub. Ivy is beneficial for wildlife in several ways: 1) the rarest plant species on the site, ivy broomrape, is parasitic on ivy, 2) dense overgrowth of ivy provides nesting and roosting sites for birds, 3) ivy blossom provides an extremely valuable nectar source of insects later in the year and 4) ivy provides a valuable food source for birds during the late winter. 
of the highly-invasive plant, Japanese Knotweed have contributed to the decline in species diversity, through out-competing all other plant-life where it grew into 3 metre-high stands. These stands have all been removed now and the re-growth is now being sprayed with a herbicide annually, to prevent it from coming back. It is such a resilient plant that its management and disposal are strictly governed by laws set out within the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1994).
