Habitat management for Great Green Bush-cricket

Hello,

after a long-running 'discussion' with the Environment Agency, I managed two years ago to get them to stop grazing and cutting on a small marsh adjacent to the Ouse Washes in Cambridgeshire. The Gullet marsh is home to a colony of the Great Green Bush-cricket, Tettigonia viridissima, one of, I believe, only two colonies in Cambridgeshire. It is possible that this is a relict population from the time before the drainage of the fens.

The two year halt to management was to allow me to monitor and map the population which I have done. We have reached the point at which the flood control people will want to begin some management of the herbage on the raised banks that the cricket favours; thistles, nettles, hemp agrimony are the plants from which the males sing at present. My first thought is to suggest partial cutting on a long rotation of say 3 or 4 years but is there a member here who actually knows the best regime to protect this species? Any references or referrals would be much appreciated,

Rob Partridge