 The dune slacks, the valleys between the dunes, may flood after heavy rain and are wet and marshy during the winter. They support round-headed club-rush (Scirpoides holoschoenus), sharp rush, round-leaved wintergreen (Pyrola rotundifolia ssp. maritima), early gentian (Gentianella anglica), and many orchid species. Listed as endangered on the Joint Nature Conservation Committee's Vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain, the water germander (Teucrium scordium), a perennial plant that lives in the slacks, has just one other population in the UK.
Behind the dunes, grassland, or dune pasture, supports a variety of grasses, sedges and herbs including rough poppy (Papaver hybridum) and toothed medick (Medicago lupulina). Scrub invasion occurs with native species such as willows, privet (Ligustrum vulgare) and common blackberry (Rubus fruticosus), and introduced species such as sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides). The scrub and grazed vegetation supports lichens such as the sausage lichen (Usnea articulata) and scrambled-egg lichen (Fulgensia fulgens), and around 60 species are found in the compacted soils.
Braunton Burrows, along with the Taw-Torridge Estuary (also an SSSI), is a main route for bird migration along the west coast of Great Britain. Waterfowl winter on the shores of the sea and estuary, while the coastline supports a variety of breeding species such as whitethroats (Sylvia communis) and magpies (Pica pica) in the scrub; skylarks (Alaunda arvensis) and meadow pipits (Anthus pratensis) in the grassland; and wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe) and shelducks (Tadorna tadorna) in holes or burrows. Invertebrates are abundant throughout the dune system, which includes 30 species of terrestrial or freshwater molluscs, including the sandbowl snail (Catinella arenaria), which is only known in two sites in the UK.
The characteristic and notable species outside the core area include sea purslane (Halimione portulacoides), Salicornia spp., pea crabs that live inside mussels, lugworm, Hydrobia snails, and annual seablite (Suaeda maritima) in estuarine and saltmarsh habitats; common reed (Phragmites australis), creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera), common rush (Juncus effusus), and fat duckweed (Lemna gibba) in the low and grazing marshland of the floodplains; and hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), ash (Fraxinus excelsior), crested dog's-tail (Cynosurus cristatus), and creeping bentgrass in mixed farmland. The reserve also contains nationally rare mammals such as the common dormouse and the European otter, the marsh fritillary butterfly, and coral reef off Lundy Island found nowhere else.
North Devon's Biosphere Reserve in its wider definition attracts a large number of visitors each year. Four million people a year visit, up to 60,000 a day in August. Northern Devon receives around 1.4 million visitors during the year who stay within the reserve and contribute over £250 million to the area's economy. Surveys show that 80% of these visit because of the environment.
Walking and hiking opportunities attract a large number of people to North Devon's Biosphere Reserve. There are footpaths throughout the national parks of Exmoor and Dartmoor, and the South West Coast Path stretches along the whole of the north coast of the reserve from Welcombe to Lynton. In 2003 research indicated that the South West Coast Path brought around £300 million a year in total to the South West, which could support more than 7,500 jobs. This research also recorded that 27.6% of visitors to the region came because of the Path, and they spent £136 million in a year. Local people took 23 million walks on the Path and spent a further £116 million, and other visitors contributed the remainder. A further study in 2005 estimated this figure to have risen to around £300 million.
- "So special – about North Devon's Biosphere Reserve". North Devon's Biosphere Reserve. Archived from the original on 11 March 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
- Bidgood, J. (12 September 2012). "North Devon's UNESCO Biosphere Reserve". Spatial Planning