Once established, a protected area must be managed to maximize biodiversity. Protecting populations of uncommon species and species characteristic from the habitat should be a high priority. However, some naturalists argue that a region, once protected, should be left to nature. Others say that in order to stop uncommon species and habitats from disappearing careful monitoring and management ought to be undertaken. After all, this is why is has been protected within the very first place. There’s no use in establishing big tracts of habitat if all the species and vegetation that it was intended to preserve slowly disappear anyway.

This argument is well illustrated by the management of heathlands. Within the natural course of succession, heathland may turn into scrubland, and eventually into woodland. However, you will find few big plots of heathland left. In order to preserve existing heath lands they should be managed to stop the succession procedure. This really is done by burning areas of the heath from time to time, which reverses the procedure of succession by a number of years, and prevents the habitat from moving beyond a certain stage of succession.

Opposing arguments state that, although burning does maintain a sort of heath land, it is not particularly favourable to uncommon species or even those characteristic of heathland. Those species best able to cope with and recover from the burning process tend to dominate, outcompeting other plants and animals which are much more essential from a natural resource conservation point of view. But if the heath was allowed to succeed naturally the rare and characteristic species would be out-competed anyway, and replaced by a new floral community.