Both over – and under-grazing can leave heather moorland in poor condition. A problem faced by land managers is to judge the state of large areas of heather moorland without using costly and time consuming studies of heather dynamics. In National Trust News 24:63, David Bullock (NT Adviser on Nature Conservation) and colleagues describe a systematic and easy method of assessing the vegetation condition of heather moorland using a Grazing Index recently published by English Nature. The index has the potential to reveal quickly whether or not a grazing regime is working.