Читать книгу A Book of Britain: The Lore, Landscape and Heritage of a Treasured Countryside - Johnny Scott - Страница 26

Burning heather to create fresh, palatable regrowth is as old as farming, but until the agricultural revolution it was only carried out in a very small way. The glorious carpet of purple bloom that we know today as an enchanting feature of parts of the north of England and much of Scotland was reclaimed from untamed heath by graziers as they established their flocks. By using a system of rotational burning across a hill farm and a carefully controlled stocking rate, flock-masters discovered that in place of scrub and old rank heather an even spread of palatable mixed ages could be maintained.

There was an ever-growing interest in shooting sports during the nineteenth century and an increasing demand for shooting tenancies. Landlords began to notice that moors managed by graziers carried many more coveys of grouse than those that weren’t. Grouse feed on the green shoots of juvenile heather plants, and burning to give fresh food for sheep simultaneously provided grouse with the necessary food source for population expansion. This led to the successful partnership between sheep and grouse which has existed ever since, with heather burning playing a vital role in moorland management for both whilst providing a habitat for an increased number of summering bird species. If heather is not burnt, it becomes old and stemmy and lacks nutritional value for sheep or grouse and both species – and indeed all other moorland wildlife – naturally decline, including predators.

IF HEATHER IS NOT BURNT, IT BECOMES OLD AND STEMMY AND LACKS NUTRITIONAL VALUE FOR SHEEP OR GROUSE AND BOTH SPECIES – AND INDEED ALL OTHER MOORLAND WILDLIFE – NATURALLY DECLINE, INCLUDING PREDATORS.

A properly managed heather moor has a mosaic pattern of different ages and lengths of heather, about 30 metres wide and up to 100 metres long, burnt rotationally every year to provide continual regrowth. This ensures that sheep graze evenly across their hefts and provides grouse and other moorland ground-nesting birds with the depth of cover to nest in safety from the increasing number of aerial predators and space for their chicks to learn to fly. Heather burning is strictly governed by legislation; below 1,500 feet it is only permissible between 1 October and 15 April and there is a fifteen-day extension for ground above that altitude. In both cases, if the weather is particularly wet a further extension may be granted. In theory, there are six months in which to burn heather; in practice, most heather is burnt in a short, hectic period from mid-March, when the heather is dry and the underlying peat wet. The most important factor is to stop burning before ground-nesting birds start to lay their eggs.

Heather burning has become very technical during my lifetime. It used to be done by gangs of men armed with shovels to control the fires, now there are tractor-mounted flails to cut out the shape of the area to be burnt, leaving damp mulch behind which helps control the flames and high-pressure fogging units mounted on Argocats to deal with emergencies. Today, hill farming incomes bear no resemblance to the value of the sporting increment, and although sheep and grouse continue to coexist necessarily, the preservation of moorland conservation is almost entirely funded by shooting. Without this the landscape would revert to an unsightly jungle of rank, heather, thistles and scrub.