BIG PICTURE
FLAWED REASONING
AS the owner of 600 acres of heather moorland below Shuttlings Low I share Laughing Badger’s concern about climate change and wild fire destroying valuable peat bogs, but much of his reasoning is flawed.
Heather moorland is a unique carbon store, a manufactured landscape, nurtured for nearly 200 years, thanks to grouse moor management.
Managed grouse moors are almost all designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Natural England research across 17 of these moorland SSSIs has found numerous vulnerable species all thriving on grouse moors.
But not on RSPB’s Geltsdale reserve, graded at the bottom of the list, with below average densities of all important moorland birds.
The same at RSPB’s Vyrnwy reserve where curlew have become extinct as a breeding species.
With millions of members RSPB shout loudly but with minimal upland experience their advice needs considerable qualification.
Sadly, Defra and Natural England policies need questioning too as farmers were required to drain moors to increase food production, were paid headage payments to increase sheep numbers and were paid to burn heather.
Now Natural England pay to block drains, pay for sheep removal and ban burning.
No wonder farmers treat each new contrary policy initiative with deep cynicism.
The present emotion about global warming could spawn more flawed policy ideas.
Living near Crowden, Sean Wood will know Peaknaze moor, which I have managed for over 10 years.
Last year we had two pairs of nesting merlin and 19 pairs of curlew, the highest of all Peak District moors and within the top four nationally.
This was not the result of rewilding, nor an accident, but the result of intensive management and illustrates the basic misunderstanding suffered by most desk top conservationists.
We must differentiate its peat below ground from the vegetation above ground, like heather, grass and mosses.
Carbon stored in peat clearly must not be lost, but the surface vegetation grows every day, just like the grass on every lawn.
Birds and mammals select the vegetative habitat they prefer and move as that changes.
Long heather creates two further problems – fire risk and the creation of sphagnum moss, the peat building block, ceases because sunlight cant reach the ground.
So the idea that rewilding or hands off management will improve biodiversity and increase the peatland carbon store is incorrect.
Likewise trees being planted across swathes of peat moorland will prejudice the carbon store already locked up.
The clamour for terminating rotational burning, superficially appealing, will lead to an increasingly combustible biomass and more wild fires.
That’s happened on Saddleworth, on Roaches, on Winter Hill, on National Trust’s Marsden moor and on RSPB’s Arnfield moor.
By contrast, there have been no large wild fires on any managed grouse moor in the Peak for the last 50 years.
So the simplistic reaction
FACEBOOK COMMENTS
OUR court report about the sentencing of a man whose dog attacked a sheep sparked a debate with plenty of people having strong views on how to keep your pets under control. Here’s what you had to say.
Patricia Halloran: So many times my little girl has been scared to death by huge bouncy dogs and their owners just carry on regardless saying ‘they’re only playing’. Chris Oldman: All
to ban grouse moor management is not the answer.
If Sean Wood wants to discuss possible answers dogs should be on a leash. I know some people will say their dog is a good boy etc - in a park, field, pavement they should be on leads.
Anne McCullough: It’s sad, but true. Anytime they are on farmers’ land, the dogs should be on leashes, no ifs and or butts.
Rick Smith: As a dog owner, with four dogs, two of which stay on the lead due to having no recall, the other two are great, but if in a field or near lifestock all four go on the lead.