Heather Restoration and Bird Populations

Geoff Eyre's presentation at the Glenlethnot heather restoration event last week included a slide of the numbers of some bird species on Howden Moor in the Peak District before and after his heather restoration work.  Geoff has kindly agreed that I can circulate this information and the graph is shown below.  It speaks for itself.

Geoff provided the following additional explanation:  The 1993 figures are taken from the English Nature bird survey.  The 2004 data comes from the Sheffield Bird Study Group survey carried out for the National Trust.  It was reported that Skylarks and Pipits were too numerous to count.

In 2010, an increase in grouse, and hares has been observed, the number of skylarks has dropped slightly, but other species have been maintained at the same level.  Populations of Snipe, Black grouse, Merlin, Kestrel, Raven, and Peregrines are thought to have increased and in 2006, Hen Harriers hunted the moor.

England and Wales Wildfire Forum

I am delighted to have been elected as Vice-Chairman of the England & Wales Wildfire Forum and I will be working with the Chairman, Paul Hedley, who is the Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service.  I see part of my role as being to represent the land management community on this Forum and to ensure that the Forum works to promote the interests of landowners and managers alongside those of the Fire & Rescue Services.

Heather Trust and Heather Beetle in 'The Times'

© Malcolm Storey, 2005, www.bioimages.org.uk

Are we making progress with raising the profile about this scourge of heather?  This piece by Nick Drainey may not exactly be front page material but every little helps.

We are starting work with our President, Rob Marrs, to do some restoration trial work in the wake of the beetle outbreak on Langholm Moor in Dumfries-shire.  This is a first step towards expanding our knowledge about heather beetle and how to manage it.  I will report on this in more detail when the work is fully under way.

A Special Kind of Light

Keith McDougall has been a long-time supporter of the Trust.  He has enjoyed a lifetime's passion for the landscapes of Norfolk and Scotland and although he claims only to be an amateur artist, the charm of his paintings in his delightful book capture and lead on irresistibly from one page to the next.


More details are available from the publisher's website.  Keith is offering supporters of the Trust a special price of £38 per copy, incl. p&p, or an even better price of £30 per copy, for 3 or more copies.

Moors for the Future conference

The Moors for the Future project is well established and has been at the forefront of heather restoration on peat since its outset. It was set up with HLF funding by the Peak District National Park to respond to the devastation on Bleaklow, above Glossop, with the devastating wildfire of April 2003, providing the final push to get something done.  I have supported the project since the outset and I was asked to chair the second day of the conference that took place on 15-16 November.  This conference marks the start of the second phase of the project that is now seeking to restore heather on bare peat in the South Pennines and on other parts of the Peak District.

The project has held many conferences and these have become a focus of the scientific research effort for all the local universities in Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds but also for all those carrying out research into uplands, especially peat management, in the rest of the UK.  They have proved to be very popular.

Three thoughts struck me from this conference:

1.  I am not convinced that enough thought has been given to the management / maintenance of the restored areas after the helicopters have departed and the vegetation has been re-established.
2.  There was a marked lack of land management input into this conference, in spite of the best efforts by the project team to attract people.  Whatever the reason for non-attendance, the lack of a balanced input detracted from the conference.  It should be noted that the land managers will be essential to solving the first issue I have outlined above.
3.  Why is it only MFF that is holding these conferences?  I think that there is scope for more similar conferences, especially if they can be made to attract delegates from all sectors.  I would like to see research that meets the needs of land managers for more information and has a practical application encouraged in this way.   Pure science can be encouraged by others.  Scotland would provide a good base for a conference to promote the research work taking place north of the border.   Is this a role for The Heather Trust or Scotland's Moorland Forum?

A Busy Period

Since the start of November, I have been going through a busy period and rather than neglect the Blog and let this period pass without comment, I thought it would be relevant to add a composite post to provide a feel for the range of work I get involved with.

On 3 November, with Tim Baynes, representing the SRPBA, I appeared in front of the Commission of Inquiry set up by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme to be questioned on the written evidence I had submitted, which had also had some input from Martin Gillibrand of the Moorland Association.  This provided an opportunity to re-express the view that the work needs to address delivery as well as research and to speak in favour of muirburn.

I visited Langholm Moor Demonstration Project on 9 November to meet Simon Lester, the Gamekeeper and Damian Bubb, the Project Scientist, to make a start with setting up the heather beetle trial we have been asked to carry out.  This will look at different heather restoration techniques after the severe beetle attack this year.

The English Moorland Burning Working Group met in Newcastle on Thursday when the Trust's input to guidance documents, the IUCN Peatland Programme and Heather Beetle issues was in demand. 

We ran a Heather Restoration event at Glenlethnot in Angus on Friday for 36 people in total.  We were fortunate that good weather followed close on the heels of atrocious conditions on Thursday.  We looked at two different approaches: the soft approach, using burning and sheep to manage the heather (successful at Glenlethnot) and Geoff Eyre, who joined us from the Peak District, explained his spray-burn-reseed techniques. 

The weekend passed working on the latest draft of the report on the Uplands Solutions project for Scotland's Moorland Forum and then ended in the Peak District in preparation for the Moors for the Future conference, today & tomorrow - I am chairman for tomorrow.  The Upland Solutions project is an important piece for work for the Forum and the production of the report has been challenging.

Wednesday will see me in Edinburgh for a meeting with Rob Dick (Board member) and Richard Allen (United Phosphorus Ltd - owners of Asulox) to explore how the Trust could promote bracken control more effectively.  This is an important topic where I would like to see better coordination between the different interests.   

And finally in this run of activity I am giving a presentation to the North of England Raptor Forum on Saturday, near Huddersfield in Yorkshire.  I hope they know what to expect!

What do the UK Uplands Mean to You?

See the post on the Blog I run for Scotland's Moorland Forum.

Upland Management: Rights & Wrongs - Heather Restoration Event

This is a repeat of the post added earlier.  Places are still available.

This event will take place on the Glenlethnot Estate, near Edzell on Friday, 12 November 10:30 - 16:00.  Further details and the flyer are available on The Heather Trust's website.

I am delighted that I will have the support of Kenny Wilson and Geoff Eyre for this event.  Neither of these need much in the way of introduction.  Kenny is the former headkeeper from the Leadhills Estate and he has been advising the estate on the muirburn and the re-introduction of sheep grazing and their additional use as tick mops.  Geoff Eyre has developed innovative techniques for gathering, treating and re-seeding with heather and is now much in demand in all parts of the UK.

There will also be input from the estate's keeper, Gavin Hannam, who has done some great work to improve the condition of the heather over the last six years.

I expect this event to be well supported and I look forward to a lively and interesting discussion.

Scotland: The Pack Inquiry

The final report from the Pack Inquiry has been published.   The main role for farming in Scotland is confirmed to be to produce food, but in addition, it is acknowledged that society now demands assistance with dealing with other global challenges.  These issues combine to provide justification for the continuation of public support.

The Inquiry highlights five the key challenges: food security, climate change, water supply, energy use and biodiversity. The enquiry also believes that the strength of rural communities is intrinsically inter-linked with a sustainable agricultural industry.

In very simple terms, the report supports the continuation of public sector funding post-2013, but suggests that more should be demanded in return.  Specifically, the support will be linked to the LFA.  Within the LFA, payments will come from an area-based support, a top-up payment and coupled beef calf and lamb schemes.  This support acknowledges the dependence on livestock in the LFA regions and the limited ability to respond to market forces.

Outside the LFA, the support will come from an area-based support and a top-up payment only, and this acknowledges the increased flexibility that the better agricultural conditions allow.

Downloads:
The full report: The Road Ahead for Scotland
The Executive Summary
The Scottish Government announcement

There is a view from the NFUS on the Moorland Forum's Blog.

Moorland Plant Guide

The North Pennines AONB has published a useful fold out guide to common moorland plants that can help with identification.  It is available as a download from their website.

Heather & Hillforts Project, 11-13 October 2010

I had an interesting trip to North Wales to meet with several different groups, coordinated by the Project Officer for the Heather & Hillforts Project.

This is a Landscape Partnership project that has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund for a three year period, but I was delighted to learn during my visit that funding has been found to run the project for a further two years.  This will give the project team an improved chance of making a long term difference.  Three years is just too short to win support and then introduce lasting change.

I met with a group of commoners on the northern common in the Clwydian Hills and viewed the effective bracken control that had been carried out and then discussed heather burning and gorse control.  The heather burning programme had suffered in recent years and there was much rank heather in evidence.

It was refreshing to come across great enthusiasm for burning and the commoners I met were keen to get started.  One of the issues discussed was all too familiar: how to introduce burning on an unburnt area while staying within the regulations.  It would be more beneficial for the heather and biodiversity if a derogation could be granted to burn larger areas to allow a start to be made.  This would show support for the graziers as it would be easier for them to get a burning programme started and it would encourage them to burn sensitively.

I find these visits useful as they keep me connected to issues on the ground.  Much of my time is spent driving a computer, but it is good to continue to be faced with practical problems.  I have long argued that you need to 'stand in the purple stuff' to gain an understanding of the scale of the issues facing those on the ground.

In contrast to the the farmers,  as part f the same visit I was invited to give a presentation to the students at a local agricultural college.  Dis-interested would have been a kind way to describe them, and a fuller description is another story!  What opportunities they are wasting.

Annual General Meeting

It was strange to be holding the AGM on home turf this year, and not just in Dumfries but in my house at Newtonrigg.  It was a lot easier to prepare from here rather than having to lug all the equipment to somewhere else.  We stuck to the usual arrangement of holding a Board meeting followed by the AGM as this has proved to be a successful recipe for the day.

One of the key issues for the Board was how the Trust is working following the restructuring carried out earlier in the year.  I was glad to be able to report that is very much a case of so far so good.  Our finances are in good shape and we have plenty of work on, with more in the pipeline.  With the Board, I was keen to identify the key areas of work that the Trust would engage with.  In summary these will be: Scotland's Moorland Forum, bracken control, development of study sites, heather beetle and carbon related issues.  However, this is not to say that we will not be reactive to other areas of work.

After a morning of meetings, it was good to get out to where it all happens.  Ben Weatherall was kind enough to host a visit to his moor at Troloss, about 20 miles from Dumfries, on the watershed of the Southern Uplands.  We were blessed by good weather and were able to inspect the heather regeneration work, using the spray-burn-reseed technique, that has been in progress for the last 8 years.  The results were very encouraging and it was a surprise for all of us, including Ben, to see a good number of grouse.  The comment was made that it was rare to see so many grouse on a HT AGM visit!

John Muir Trust - Vision for Wild Land & Wild Places

The JMT has published its new Vision for Wild Land & WIld Places and it is available from their website.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Smiths Gore have published a commendably short summary of the how the review affects rural areas.  It can be downloaded here.

What if Britain's hill farmers managed the land for wildlife and carbon?

This video was produced by the RELU funded Sustainable Uplands project that I supported.  It provides a slightly Peak District centred view of upland management but it well worth 8:06 minutes of your time to peruse.  It includes the some down-to-earth statements from Geoff Eyre and introduces the concept of carbon trading.

Swaling on Exmoor

Swaling on Molland Moor

The Exmoor National Park Authority has published its response to the proposed guidance to be published by Defra in amplification of the Heather & Grass Burning Code covering swaling (the local term for heather burning).   Details of the response can be downloaded from the ENPA website,  and there is a link to the Defra guidance.


The local concern is that the standard practices contained in the Code do not reflect the traditional management practices on Exmoor and that greater flexibility is required to meet the aspirations of the land management community.  The concerns about the proposed guidance are based on three key issues: (a) authorised burn plots are too small; (b) rotations are too long and moving toward shorter rotations would be better, and (c) just burning, or just grazing or just machine cropping are never going to be enough to actually maintain/retain the heather moorland.


While I understand the reasons for the guidance contained in the latest version of the code, as I was part of the Group that advised Defra, we need the support of the local land managers if any swaling is to take place and the Code is to be implemented.  If the support of the land managers is lost because the Code does not reflect the traditional practices in the region, nothing will happen and the biggest loser will be the moorland on Exmoor, which is what we are all trying to preserve.  My message: we must retain the ability to tailor national guidance to meet local aspirations and match local conditions.

Scotland - Draft Land Use Strategy

The consultation on the draft Land Use Strategy is now open and details can be downloaded from The Scottish Government's website.  Responses will be accepted until 17 December, but early responses by the end of November will be welcomed.  

I will be looking at this from a Heather Trust perspective but also on behalf of Scotland's Moorland Forum.

IUCN UK Peatland Programme’s Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands

I have blogged previously about this Commission of Inquiry, for which I am a member of the Advisory Committee, but I would like to provide you with a reminder about the conference that is taking place on 28-29 September 2010.  It is going to be a big and interesting gathering.  Those who want to attend this conference have probably already registered, but may I draw your attention to the eight reviews that have been published recently that will form the main point of discussion at the conference.

These can be downloaded from the Programme's website and are well worth a look:

State of the UK Peatlands

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Potential

Peatland Biodiversity

Impacts of Peatland Restoration

Impacts of Burning Management on Peatlands

Peatland Hydrology

Importance of Peatlands for the Historic Environment

Policy Options for Sustainable Management

The issues covered go wider than just peat management and the Burning Management and Peatland Restoration reviews are of particular relevance.

I had some input into the Sustainable Management review and Rob Marrs featured in the Burning Management review.  I have a short speaking part at the conference, wearing my Moorland Forum hat, as has Ian Condliffe, so we will be well represented.

I will aim to provide a summary of the key findings in this blog after the conference.  Happy reading!

Invitation to Participate in the FIRES Seminar Series Follow-up Survey

Message from Dr Julia McMorrow & Dr Anna Gilchrist


Four FIRES seminars on the effects of moorland and heathland wildfires and prescribed fires on ecosystem services were held during 2008-2009, www.fires-seminars.org.uk. The series was funded jointly by ESRC and NERC.

A policy brief has been produced. It summarises the key messages from the series, policy recommendations and knowledge gaps:
http://www.fires-seminars.org.uk/downloads/FIRES_Policy%20Brief_final.pdf

We would like to know what you think about these recommendations. Please take 10 minutes to complete our on-line survey. We are keen to hear from anyone who has views on UK vegetation fires. It is not necessary to be involved in fire management or policy-making, or to have attended the FIRES seminars. We welcome responses from as wide a range of stakeholders as possible. Please feel free to forward it to other interested parties.

The survey closes on October 15th. Responses are individual and anonymous. However, if you choose to provide your contact details we will enter you into the prize draw for a £25 book token. Further information can be found on the introductory page of the survey. If you have any queries please contact anna.gilchrist@manchester.ac.uk

Click here to go to the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XPWSYQN

Heather for Cutting

Dinsdales in action
www.dinsdale.co.uk

The last post prompted me to think about the supply of heather seed.  It is a finite resource as it has to be collected from moors that machinery can travel on and there must be reasonable access to a track or road.

The demand for seed is increasing and this begs the question of its value.

If the value increases sufficiently there will come a point where it will be viable for the owners of suitable heather ground to grow the heather as a crop.  The heather on a suitable area would be nurtured specifically for cutting in return for a payment when it is harvested.

This may already be in the minds of owners of moorland, but it would be interesting to learn at what price this would become a worthwhile exercise.  Has anyone got any thoughts?