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Wise Use | Stopping The Rot | Looking After The Habitat | Looking After The Wildlife
Stopping The Rot
Almost a quarter (24%) of Scotland’s heather moorland was lost in the last 60 years with most of that (18%) between the 1940s and the 1970s. (Scottish Natural Heritage, 1994)
There has been considerable variation in losses, from regions such as the Western Isles which saw only a 3% decline to Dumfries & Galloway which was down by 63% over this period. The major drivers for this change were an increase in sheep numbers (conversion to grassland) and an increase in coniferous plantations.
A study by Robertson, Park and Barton (2001) showed that use for grouse shooting was significant in helping to prevent the loss of moorland in Scotland. Between the 1940’s and 1980’s moors managed for grouse shooting lost on average only 24% of their heather cover while non grouse moors lost 41%.This is explained in more detail in the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s booklet Nature's Gain (page 13)
Along with the loss of moorland habitat goes loss of the wildlife which depends on it. Many moorland birds are now “Red listed or “amber listed” according to the UK’s leading ornithological organisation - the British Trust for Ornithology.
The Countryside Survey 2000 showed that the decline continued between 1990 and 1998, although it may have slowed since then with the cessation of large scale conifer planting and more recently a reduction of sheep numbers.
There is also now a greater appreciation of the value of heather moorland, and new techniques are being developed to re-establish heather where it has been lost. This is a slow and expensive process and it will need prolonged effort to reverse the decline.
Heather grazed out by sheep
The Scottish Government has an aspiration to achieve the target of 25% of Scotland to be under tree cover by the second half of this century, with planting levels increasing to 10,000 hectares per annum (Scottish Forestry Strategy 2006). These will be mainly native species, as opposed to “commercial conifers”, but it will be difficult to sustain that level of planting without encroaching on some of the remaining heather moorland. Some small areas of marginal forestry are being converted back to partial moorland where there is a particular reason, such as Black grouse habitat, but there is still the possibility that moorland will continue to decline overall.
In England, there was a similar 20% loss of heather area in the post war period, but this was stabilised in the 1990’s and is now gradually starting to increase again. Many of the techniques used to achieve this can equally well be applied in Scotland, particularly on the drier moors of Central and Eastern Scotland.
Reseeded heather – Howden Moor
