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A burning question of heather hangs over traditions of the Glorious Twelfth
In Yorkshire's uplands, life follows a familiar routine.
The seasonal cycle of jobs has remained unchanged for as long as anyone can remember and this winter, just as they have for a century-and-a-half, gamekeepers will be out in force as the annual heather burning begins.
It's a skilled art and one many believe necessary to maintaining healthy grouse populations. They may well be right, but what no one yet knows is what impact the burning has on the rest of the environment, particularly the peat soil and nearby rivers
and streams.
"Gamekeepers began burning patches of heather in the 1850s," says Professor Joseph Holden, part of a research team from Leeds University, who will spend the next three years analysing areas of heather burning. "Grouse prefer to eat new shoots of heather because they are more palatable so the idea has been to give them easy access to the food they want.
"They also like more mature heather to nest in and because they don't tend to move great distances, what gamekeepers have been trying to do is create an environment which suits all their needs in a relatively
small areas
"It's easy to say we've done it for years and nothing terrible appears to have happened so it must be okay. However, if you want scientific evidence, there isn't any.
"If heather burning is changing the peat soil, altering the eco-systems of our streams and rivers and affecting the water quality, then we need to know about it."
The team, funded to the tune of 600,000 by the National Environment Research Centre, has no hidden agenda, but if the results do prove a persuasive argument against burning, it will reignite an old and particularly thorny debate. Those whose livelihoods depend on the shooting season, which begins in earnest next week, claim the burning of heather, which now enjoys a raft of Government best practice guidelines, actually increases the amount of insect life, promotes the growth of wild flowers, and done properly, helps maintain a healthy and diverse ecosystem.
Rubbish, say some environmentalists who believe it is having a devastating impact on small invertebrates, discolouring streams and potentially contributing to climate change.
Prof Holden is sensibly adopting a more neutral line.
"For centuries the uplands have been a semi-managed environment and human intervention has shaped the way our landscape looks today," he says. "The last thing people who work on the moors want is a group of scientists telling them what they should and shouldn't be doing. Gamekeepers burn heather because they genuinely think it is beneficial. They are responsible for looking after a very rare habitat and it's not a job they take lightly.
"We also recognise the shooting industry generates a lot of money, but hopefully the research we are doing will help all those involved manage the land in the very best way possible.
"We are approaching this from a purely scientific point of view and we want people on board. This is not about a group of academics telling people what they can and can't do. The plan is to run workshops in the upland communities where we are carrying out the research to explain what we are doing."
The 10 research sites – an even split of burned and unburned sites – are currently being finalised, but will include a number in Yorkshire. During the three-year project, many thousands of readings will be taken and by the end it is hoped a detailed picture of the landscape will emerge.
In particular, the group will be testing water quality, comparing the animal life in various streams and analysing any changes in the peat. It's already known that over the past 10,000 years, tonnes of carbon have been locked away in peat soils. However, if damaged that carbon could be released back into the atmosphere turning the moors into a potential climate change timebomb. "Peat is basically decaying organic matter which began to amass after the last Ice Age," says Prof
Holden. "People talk about the need to plant more trees to help reverse carbon emissions, but preserving moorland peat is actually a
much more efficient way of capturing carbon.
"This whole project is about getting to the bottom of what's really going on in our uplands and it's not just about carbon emissions. By analysing different stretches of water we will be able to tell if burning is having a detrimental effect on water quality.
"It is incredibly costly to treat water and increasingly stringent regulations means that it is more important than ever to protect our water sources from contamination."
While Prof Holden already knows the questions that need answering, he also knows the alternatives to heather burning are not straightforward. In some parts of Wales, burning has already been stopped in favour of mowing, but as yet the benefits are unproved.
"Mowing obviously leaves a layer of cut heather on the top of the moorland and we really don't know what the knock-on effect of that might be," he says. "But that's a whole other issue for a whole other day.
"Hopefully, this project will shed some much-needed light on the issue of burning. Currently, gamekeepers use a rotation system, with a patch burned only once every five to 10 years, but we really don't know whether that is an effective way of doing things."
While it will be some time before the research group publishes its first analysis of Yorkshire's moorland, previous research by Prof
Holden has shown the devastating impact man can have on the land.
During the 1960s and '70s, a massive network of drains and ditches were dug on the uplands in an attempt to reduce the wetness. It worked, but four decades on, it has left the peat prone to collapsing.
"I became tired of walking across peat moorlands and falling down holes or getting my wellies stuck, so I decided I'd try to find out what
these holes were and what caused them," he says. "Because peat is roughly 90 per cent water, it's very boggy and sheep can easily get stuck in it.
"In the past, it was common practice to reduce the wetness of the soil by digging drains, but it seems it has left many areas badly damaged. By using radar we have discovered that in many areas it has led to the formation of millions of underground pipes and passageways.
"Eventually, it gets to the point where the peat is so full of holes that it simply collapses. These pipes may not be visible to the naked eye, but they are a very
big problem.
"Once peat has been dried out, you can't simply restore it by adding water. The damage is irreversible and if we are to prevent a future environmental disaster, we need to look after this very precious resource."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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