Plants such as vetches, rockrose, scabious, cut-leaf germander, ground pine, the bee orchid and other orchids are struggling to survive on these limited areas. They need every piece of land that can be protected.

The fields are home to skylarks, brown hares and lapwings and also provide hunting grounds for buzzards, kestrels, merlins and hobbies. The area around Micheldever is visited by red kites, and still has some of those increasingly rare species – barn owls and bats.

The Dever Valley is a typical downland dry valley, but areas of wetland are often formed by rising water levels in winter and spring. The River Dever flows down the valley to Chilbolton to join the River Test, one of Hampshire's most celebrated chalk streams. Trout, eels, water rats, moorhens, coots, rails, kingfishers, herons, redshanks, can all be seen on the Dever.

However, extraction of water for Hampshire's increasing population has already reduced the water table in the area; water to many downland streams, including the Dever, is now supplied from artificial boreholes. Any additional demands on the water supply would inevitably ensure the gradual demise of streams like the Dever.