Galloway Fisheries Trust Meeting

It was great to catch up with the work of the Galloway Fisheries Trust at their recent open meeting held in Gatehouse of Fleet. Heather Trust Project Manager Patrick Laurie attended an afternoon of discussion and presentations looking at some of the Trust's work over the last twelve months.

Much of the afternoon was focussed on monitoring local populations of salmon, sparling and (unfortunately) american signal crayfish, but there are some big areas of crossover between the Galloway Fisheries Trust and the Heather Trust.

An increasing emphasis on water quality, flood prevention and riparian habitats all link back to healthy uplands, and it's useful for the Heather Trust to keep in touch with the work being carried out in these areas by fisheries at a catchment scale. During the afternoon, one of the GFT presentations specifically described peatland restoration projects in areas of commercial forestry, and another looked at mitigating the impact that industrial development for forestry and renewable energy can have on water quality and biodiversity. This is music to our ears at the Heather Trust, integrating a full range of interests and balancing them so that we can get the best out of our uplands.

Galloway Fisheries Trust are a small charity punching well above their weight, and it's easy to keep in touch with them given that they are also based in southwest Scotland. At the same time, GFT concerns overlap with wider issues across the UK, and it would be good to develop ties with similar local organisations up and down the country.

A New Director

This week sees a change of Director at The Heather Trust, as Anne Gray takes over the reins from outgoing Director, Simon Thorp.

Anne is from a farming family in Berwickshire and has worked in the rural land use sector for the last ten years with Scottish Land & Estates, latterly leading on their Land Use & Environment portfolio.  She has a first class honour degree in Environmental Science and has a particular interest in the emerging natural capital agenda.

Commenting on her new role Anne said: 

“I’m incredibly pleased to be taking up this role.  I was attracted to the Heather Trust because I instinctively felt we were a great match.  It is about integrated land management, so finding the right balance between living and working on the land and ensuring the natural world thrives.  This is something I’m very keen on. 

I’m taking over from Simon Thorp who has built the reputation of The Heather Trust over the last 16 years.  It is recognised throughout the UK for the role it plays in consensus building and in demonstrating good practice.  It sits in the space between a number of different land use interests, and uses objectivity and science to help broker a way forward.  I am very happy with that and I want to build on the excellent foundations Simon has created.  We are not saying goodbye just yet to Simon, he will for a time continue with Scotland’s Moorland Forum and will complete one or two other projects for the Trust that he has been an integral part of.” 

“This is a very uncertain time for the UK’s moorlands and uplands.  Michael Gove last week launched DEFRA’s consultation on the future of farming policy.  His proposals signal change, but he is listening to calls for the uplands to be given particular consideration.  His desire to see public money deliver for the environment may well be a good thing for the uplands since they have a large role to play in delivering things like natural flood management, carbon storage and improved biodiversity.  However, as yet we just don’t have enough detail to know whether this will be the case.  I intend for the Heather Trust to be fully involved in demonstrating the case for the UK’s uplands and moorlands not just to DEFRA but in all relevant arenas.”      

The Heather Trust’s heather beetle summary 2017

In 2017, we received 38 reports from across the UK about locations where heather beetle outbreaks had been occurred or beetle damage discovered.

The collection of data for this survey started in 2006, and we would like to thank all those who responded to our requests for information during 2017.  Their support has allowed this unique information resource to develop further.  

The 38 locations have been plotted on a map (below) and show a large sweep of outbreaks across Northern England and the Eastern Highlands of Scotland, running from Llanthony Valley on the Welsh Marches to Langwell Estate in Caithness.

The surveys record damage to approximately 10,000 acres of heather. This is comparable to 2012 and 2013, but considerably less than 2011 when we recorded 28,500 acres of beetle damage and 2014, which produced records of 20,000 acres of damage.

In general terms, damage was equally distributed between young and old heather. Particular clusters are identifiable in the Trough of Bowland, Central Perthshire and the North Pennines, with other outbreaks grouped in Powys and the Peak District.

After several years of heather beetle damage in the West Country, there were no returns at all in 2017. This might be interpreted as a failure to record damage, but three survey returns recorded ”no damage” in 2017, and follow up phone calls to contacts on Dartmoor suggest that beetle was either absent or present at an imperceptibly low level.

Another notable absence includes the North York Moors. In previous years, the North York Moors have been a significant location for beetle (a small area of the NYMs suffered 15% of all recorded damage in the UK in 2014).

In 2017, the survey form was expanded to include questions regarding heather beetle in relation to wet ground, in an effort to establish whether or not there was any link between heather beetle outbreaks and areas where re-wetting was in progress as part of peatland restoration. While some of the survey returns recorded beetle damage on ground that had been re-wetted, there was no obvious trend linking the two. It will be useful to remain in touch with the estates with beetle outbreaks that area also involved with re-wetting programmes to find how/if wetter ground has an impact on heather regeneration in subsequent growing seasons.

Although it is not exclusively the case, the survey forms suggest that heather requires active management in order to recover fully from heather beetle damage, even if this is simply a continuation of existing heather management plans.

The best way to regenerate heather after a heather beetle attack is the subject of two trials that we will be reporting on in about 12 months time.  The work at Langholm is complete, but the final habitat survey, as part of the trial in the Peak District, takes place next summer.  We plan to report on the findings from both trials and incorporate the results of the survey. 2018 will be the last year of the beetle survey, and we hope to publish all of our findings early in 2019.