Chris Packham has suggested that the New Forest is in danger of becoming degraded by burgeoning numbers of free ranging ponies (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/15/new-forest-being-destroyed-by-growing-number-of-ponies-says-chris-packham). Ponies (and other grazing animals with different eating styles) are useful in reducing scrub and helping to maintain biodiversity but the amount of such activity has to be regulated. The trouble seems to be that there are financial inducements for 'commoners' to keep more and more horses. Mr Packham is quite right that the ponies will eventually stop the forest from maintaining itself (they eat seedlings). The trouble is that the local arrangements do not seem to have effective oversight. It is, of course, difficult to know how to reduce the number ponies (who's ponies get removed and what happens to them?).
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