North Wales Moors - Stakeholder Workshop - 10 February 2016

I am looking forward to attending the stakeholder workshop at the Lake Vyrnwy Hotel, on 10 February.  The workshop is being organised by the RSPB as part of the bid, which is due to be submitted in September 2016, to the EU LIFE Nature Fund for the North Wales Moors.

If approved, the project will focus on: restoration of blanket bogs across the project area, establishing favourable condition on dry heath and aim to achieve favourable conservation status of Merlin and Hen harrier in the Berwyn and Migneint-Arenig-Dduallt SAC & SPAs.

I hope that the Trust will be able to support this project and build on the contacts we re-established in Wales as part of the meeting held on the Rhiwlas Estate last October, in conjunction with the Trust's AGM.  I understand that the numbers attending have been kept small, but it would be good to see other members and supporters at the meeting.  If you are attending, please let me know.

The AGM in Wales: Compromise, Cooperation and Communication

Team Photo on Rhiwlas Mountain

By Patrick Laurie

It turned out to be a beautiful day for the Heather Trust’s AGM and discussion meeting yesterday, at Bala in North Wales, with miserable black clouds breaking up by mid-morning to reveal bright sunshine and wonderful views across the wild hills towards Snowdonia.

Almost forty members, delegates and supporters from a wide range of backgrounds including BASC, RSPB, Natural Resources Wales and FWAG Cymru gathered at the Gorwelian Centre for a morning of presentations, which explored the history and future of moorland management in Wales. Ant Griffith of CLA Cymru spoke passionately about the value of the Welsh Uplands, and Will Duff Gordon and GWCT’s Teresa Dent explained the significance of the Nature Fund, which has really sparked off a new wave of upland interest amongst a range of different Welsh stakeholders.

The thrust of the day was extremely positive and progressive, and the value of compromise, cooperation and communication was emphasized in order to ensure that Welsh moorland provides the best outcomes for the widest range of different interests, from farming and sporting to conservation and peat. 

After an excellent lunch, there was an opportunity to visit the Rhiwlas Estate, with owner and land manager Richard Price, who had offered an impression of the estate’s past and future during the presentations in the morning. Gaining height over the large extent of moorland to the North of Afon Tryweryn, the convoy of vehicles trekked along a rough mountain track between Welsh Mountain sheep and a cornucopia of reddening whinberry plants. 

Discussions near the top of the hill ranged from the potential impact of proposals to change rights of access in Wales to the breeding ecology of hen harriers, and the theme of cooperation ran as a constant thread throughout. It is hoped that Rhiwlas might one day be able to provide some grouse shooting again, and the balanced nature of the exchanges tried to ensure that everybody’s voice would be heard as management work begins to pick up over the coming months.

As always, the broad spread of attendees demonstrated the Trust’s “broad church” approach to land management, and we look forward to keeping in touch with our growing number of contacts in Wales as they approach the various exciting, fascinating challenges the next few years will present.

Wales: Fairness for the Uplands - now an official group

Fairness for the Uplands (F4U) was established last year as a campaigning group to oppose low moorland payments proposed by Welsh ministers as part of the new Basic Payment Scheme (BPS).

In December, last year, the self-funded group won a legal victory over the Welsh Government which forced ministers back to the BPS drawing board.  See the full article in The Daily Post, which has links to related stories.

F4U aims to support upland farmers in Wales who feel “under-represented by existing farming groups" and it has now been formed as an official group and wants to carry on representing hill farmers on a variety of upland and rural issues.

Wildfire in February 2014?

Photo: Harry Charnock

You must be joking, I hear you say, but no, it happened last week, near Aberystwyth.  See the article in The Daily Post.  This only serves to demonstrate that Mother Nature is a fickle lady, and while we may all be sploshing around in our wellies, and reeling from the wettest conditions that anyone wants to remember, things can change quickly.

If Mother Nature turns off the taps, and that yellow orb starts to do its work, conditions can change quickly.  We could easily be into dry vegetation and even dry ground conditions by the 'wildfire season' in late March / early April.  It seems unlikely, but will you be ready?

Bog restoration in Wales

Photo: Wales online

The National Trust, with funding from Natural Resources Wales, is working to restore the large Migneint upland bog on the Gwynedd-Conwy border.

For more details see the WalesOnline article.

Wildfire Developments

There have been several developments relating to wildfire in recent months that I have been involved with.

Housing & Moorland

The Wildfire 2013 conference was held in Cardiff in October and this followed a familiar pattern. There was a wide range of presentations covering research everything from research through equipment to best practice. The South Wales Fire & Rescue Service hosted the meeting and organised the site visit. My memory of the site visit was the proximity of open hill ground to housing estates in the Welsh valleys to the north of Cardiff. It is no wonder that they have a significant wildfire problem.


The Wildfire Operational Guidance was launched by ACO Robert Scott the Chairman of the Scottish Wildfire Forum.  This was the culmination of an enormous amount of heard work Northumberland FRS who produced the guidance for the Scottish FRS.  The guidance is primarily aimed at the Fire & Rescue Services, but there is much good information in it for everyone.  It is likely to be adopted throughout the UK and it marks a significant step forward in raising our ability to manage wildfire and it is available to download from the Scottish Government website.

The Scottish wildfire Forum has been in the doldrums for a while, but the formation of the single Scottish Fire & Rescue Service on 1 April, this year has provided the catalyst to review the work of the Forum.  As a result of this, the Forum was relaunched on 21st September and is now building momentum.

Uppermost in many minds in Scotland will be the events of April 2013 and the spate of wildfires that affected the north-west of Scotland.  Discussions are being held about how the warning system can be improved so that periods of high fire risk can be identified in advance.  Such a system would have a double benefit: it would allow warnings to be issued to the owners and managers of land in advance, and it would also allow the FRS to make preparations by moving manpower and equipment into high risk areas.  A Fire Danger Rating (FDR) system is envisaged and the Met Office is involved in developing proposals.

As Vice-Chairman of the England & Wales Wildfire Forum I have been involved in the discussions of the FDR and also developing stronger links to government in England and Wales so that they have a better understanding of the risk posed by wildfire and the capability of the wildfire forum to assist in raising awareness and developing the best techniques for reducing the risk of damage from wildfire.

Welsh Connections

The Trust has been rather quiet in Wales recently.  I regret this separation as I believe there are plenty of opportunities for the HT message to be beneficially applied in Wales, but as a result of two recent visits, I hope that this situation is about to change.

There has been a big upheaval in Wales with the establishment of a combined government agency called Natural Resources Wales (NRW) that has been formed from the Countryside Commission for Wales (CCW), and the Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency in Wales.  This new organisation will no doubt take time to bed down but it provides an opportunity to reconsider the support for the Welsh uplands.  I hope that this will prove to be a turning point for an integrated approach to moorland management in Wales.

In response to the formation of NRW, the Country Land & Business Association (CLA) in Wales called together a group of landowners to consider how an approach to the Welsh Government could best be made to highlight the importance and value of the Welsh uplands.  I was pleased to attend this meeting, and I have offered support for any work that develops from it.

I have been maintaining a watching brief as a member of Upland Ecosystems Group (UEG) in Wales, but it has been hard to justify attending meetings as there has been no opportunities to develop any involvement.  However, I was able to attend a meeting of the UEG, last week, and this was combined with a workshop for a new project being run by the RSPB called North Wales Moors Futurescapes; this seeks to consider landscape scale conservation management across a large area of the uplands that include Ruabon Moor, the Berwyn Mountains, and moorland at  Migneint and Hiraethog.  I have suggested that some 'old fashioned' demonstration events that I champion for the Trust could be beneficial to being people together to discuss the issues.

I hope that these initiatives will serve to re-establish the Trust's presence in Wales and allow us to provide some  input that will help to improve the management of the Welsh uplands.

Glastir worth £16m to Welsh upland farmers

See the article published by the Farmers Guardian.  This is positive news and I was interested to see that the Common Land Development Officers (CDOs) appear to be making a positive impact.  I have long argued that there is a role for some form of facilitator to bring people together in rural areas to help with grant applications and this is especially valuable on Common Land.

I am in Wales tomorrow for a meeting of the Upland Ecosystem Group followed by a meeting of the North Wales Moors Futurescapes project.  Glastir is bound to be central to much of the discussion and it will be interesting to find out if there are any lessons that can be exported to other parts of the UK.

CLA Cymru Moorland Initiative

I was pleased to attend a meeting organised by the CLA in Wales last week, to lend support to their initiative that is considering how best to support upland managers across Wales.  With the recent formation of Natural Resources Wales (NRW) as a successor body to the Countryside Commission for Wales (CCW), in combination with the Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency in Wales, there is an opportunity for moor owners to develop new relationships with the Welsh Assembly Government and its agencies

In England and in Scotland, I believe that the role that landowners and land managers can play in helping the government agencies realise their ambitions for the uplands is now better understood and the relationship between the different organisations is improving, although there is always room for improvement.

In Wales, I believe that there is much more scope for improving relationships and perhaps there are lessons that can be learned from elsewhere.  From the views expressed at last week's meeting, there is little doubt that the previous arrangements for managing the Welsh uplands have not been a success and that under NRW the regime should be changed.  There may be some resistance to drawing on ideas from elsewhere,  but I would suggest that this should be very acceptable if it leads to faster improvements in the state of the moorlands and uplands in Wales.

I think back to my test when reviewing the condition of an upland area.  Stand on a high point and look around.  Ask the question, 'Is this how I would like it to be?'  If, as is all too often, the answer is no, the follow up questions must be, 'What needs to be done, who is going to do it and how is the work to be funded?'.  There needs to be a lot of mountain climbing in Wales to look at the views.

There will always be a shortage of funding and in simple pragmatic terms, if some landowners want to fund some management work that will improve the uplands with a view to one day shooting a few grouse, where is the sense in opposing this?  Every source of income needs to the exploited to the full.

I am pleased to be supporting this initiative and I wish it every success.

Welcome to Natural Resources Wales

This new public body became operational in Wales on 1 April and brings together the work of the Countryside Council for Wales, Environment Agency Wales and Forestry Commission Wales, as well as some functions of Welsh Government.  It will consider social, environmental and economic benefits in the way it manages natural resources and improves the environment.

But will it make a difference?  There are bound to be considerable teething problems as the new body settles down and people get used to working across sectors.  Inevitably, in this day and age, one of the limiting factors will be IT - how long will it take the systems from three separate organisations to learn to communicate?

There has to be logic, which the 'change managers' will have hooked onto, in bringing three organisations together and no doubt there will be a slimming down of 'back-office' staff but it will remain to be seen how this impacts on the moorlands and uplands of Wales.  To my mind these areas of Wales are in serious need of a champion and the test for the new organisation will not be in how sweetly the organisation runs, the amount of paperclips it uses or the size of the cost savings, but the impact it has on the land and on the people that manage the land.  

This model of large single bodies is being considered elsewhere.  In Scotland, will SEPA merge with SNH, in England will Natural England, merge with the Environment Agency or the Forestry Commission?  Natural England is still suffering birth pains from its formation from English Nature, RDS and the Countryside Commission, and it is far from a foregone conclusion that merging organisations is a recipe for instant success.

Natural Resources Wales claims that it will provide a better service for people and businesses as they will now deal with one single body rather than three.  I give a cautious welcome to Natural Resources Wales but from my perspective the jury will be out until the impact on the moorland and upland areas of Wales can be judged.

Wales: Single Body - Natural Resources Wales

The creation of a single body in Wales is nearing completion to bring together the functions of the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency Wales, and the Forestry Commission Wales . 

The single body will be called Natural Resources Wales and it comes into full existence from 1 April 2013.

The Welsh Government website has a useful summary of the background to the decision to form a single body and much more information.

I hope that we can develop and maintain links to this body as it finds its feet.  There will be much that can be shared with other parts of the UK.  It may just be me, but I feel that Wales has become more introverted of late, and I would welcome some additional involvement.  There are large upland areas that would benefit from an external, independent view that the Heather Trust could provide.

England & Wales: Farming Delivers for the hills and uplands

I recommend this publication to anyone interested in upland farming.  The publication can be found on the NFU website and it was launched by the NFU at their conference earlier this year.  It has been produced by and for hill farmers in the uplands of England and Wales and it provides a useful summary of the invaluable role played by agriculture in managing our uplands:

• for the production of food, 
• for economic benefit, 
• for the community and heritage, 
• for the environment, and 
• for climate and energy.

Wales: Commons & Glastir

Grazing Associations planning to sign up to the Glastir Common Land element 2013 contract should remember to complete and return their application by 31 August 2012.  More info.

From 2012, Glastir will replace the existing agri-environment schemes, and will  pay for the delivery of specific environmental goods and services aimed at: combating climate change;improving water management; and, maintaining and enhancing biodiversity.  It is designed to deliver measurable outcomes at both a farm and landscape level in a cost effective way.  More info about Glastir

Wales: Upland research to continue at Pwllpeiran

The research farm at Pwllpeiran is to be retained and transferred to Aberystwyth University.  This has been a source of research on upland grazing management in the past and I hope this will continue.

The news release also makes reference to the establishment of Knowledge Exchange Centre for upland land use.  This could have wider relevance and link to similar proposals in other parts of the UK.

Wales: Single Body gains Legal Status

A single body to maintain, enhance and manage the sustainable use of Wales’ natural resources now has legal status following a debate in the National Assembly.  The single body will replace the  Environment Agency Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales and the Forestry Commission for Wales from 1 April 2013.  More info.

What will it be called?