UPL10Shepherding livestock on moorland (remove stock for at least 8 months)

What it actually is

UPL8 stretched to its long form: all livestock except resident ponies off the entered land for at least 8 consecutive calendar months each year, leaving the moor grazed for at most a four month window, and in that window the stock actively shepherded, herded or temporarily fenced away from the sensitive features named in the written stocking and shepherding calendar. The family's feeding rules run underneath, and the calendar carries the removal and return dates, monthly numbers, identified features and planned shepherding, kept as the required record. GOV.UK's stated aim matches the four month version's: grazing managed to avoid the features grazing damages, wherever possible.

Source: GOV.UK, UPL10 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page. Multiplied out:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date. The 200 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

The four month grazing window is the whole question. A flock that summers on the moor and winters entirely elsewhere fits an eight month removal almost by definition, and for that system this rate stacks a substantial sum on top of the grazing tier for formalising the shape it already has. A system that needs the moor in spring and back-end as well as summer cannot give eight consecutive months, and no rate changes that. As with UPL3 at the grazing tiers, the top rung of the shepherding pair suits the moors already nearest to it.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; requirements from GOV.UK, UPL10 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The judgements are Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The evidence position is the UPL8 page's, and the moorland-specific record, carried in full on the UPL1 page, bears hardest on this long-rest version: the studies behind the Likely to be beneficial grade for maintaining upland heath and moorland, 17 studies, 90 per cent effectiveness, 50 per cent certainty, most closely tested exclusion and heavy reduction of grazing, the territory an eight month removal occupies, and found more heather cover, more moths and bird-diet arthropods, and benefits to black grouse, against the counterweights of mixed species responses and reduced soil organism abundance in four studies. The shepherding half remains unmeasured in the graded record. The one caution from the file that grows with the rest period is the coarse grass one: grazing was among the treatments found effective against rank grass dominance, and a moor empty for eight months is relying on its four grazed months to do that work.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 647, Farmland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026. The reading is Tilth's own; fuller accounts are on the UPL1 and UPL8 pages.

What you actually have to do

Remove all livestock except resident ponies for at least 8 consecutive calendar months each year. In the grazed months, take reasonable steps to keep stock from the identified sensitive features by shepherding, herding or temporary fencing. Feed nothing but mineral licks away from sensitive areas, with the extreme weather hay exception. Produce and keep the written stocking and shepherding calendar and record. Static: the same land throughout.

Source: GOV.UK, UPL10 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Above the moorland line on permanent grassland or the non-agricultural covers. It can be done on the same area as the moorland grazing actions UPL1, UPL2 or UPL3, and on its own where they are not taken. The four month version, UPL8, is the same machinery with a longer grazing season and a lower rate.

Source: GOV.UK, UPL10 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

Eight consecutive months is ten days from forever. A late gather or an early turnout at either end of the window breaks the consecutive run. Build slack into the calendar's dates rather than promising the knife edge.

The grazed window has to earn its keep twice. Four months must deliver the grazing tier's habitat aim and hold the coarse grasses back. The cattle and pony supplements UPL5 and UPL6 exist for exactly this: heavier mouths doing more structural work in less time.

Resident means resident. The pony exception covers animals that live on the moor, not animals brought to it. What counts as resident on your ground is worth confirming before the calendar assumes it.

The empty moor still needs walking. Fences, licks gone astray, other people's stock wandering on: the removal months are compliance months too, and a neighbour's ewes on your emptied moor are a conversation to have quickly and note in the record.

Keeping the evidence

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, UPL10 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Whether the moor can be a four month grazing and still be your farm is a system question only your stocking history answers. Tilth holds that history, parcel by parcel, and the calendar this action wants is a report from it rather than a fresh chore. Request an invite.