Wuthering Moors 42

The scale of burning of English blanket bogs revealed by the latest RSPB work is scary. There are 127 separate consents (mostly through HLS agreements – ie we taxpayers are paying for it too) for burning on blanket bogs. These affect these seven  Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)(Border Mires, Kielder-Butterburn; Ingleborough Complex; Moor House –…

Wuthering Moors 41

Following my blog ‘first’ thing this morning here is some more information on the damage that burning does to blanket bogs. Martin Harper’s blog today expands on the RSPB’s thinking about burning of blanket bog. More details of the RSPB’s complaint to the EU over the management (they clearly regard it as mis-management, as did…

Burn, maybe burn (aka Wuthering Moors 40)

The RSPB is getting stroppy about burning of blanket bogs – I like that. Burning heather on a rotation of 7-20 years is part of the industrialisation of the upland landscape of parts of the UK.  The main reason for doing it is to produce totally unnaturally high densities of Red Grouse which can then…

Water flows downhill

The ‘Ban the Burn’ group is having a demonstration outside the head offices of Natural England tomorrow morning as NE staff arrive at work. It’s not only lowland flat places that suffer flooding – Hebden Bridge has had more than its fair share over recent years.  Many residents there feel that poor management on the…

Wuthering Moors 39

If you look at the Ordnance Survey map at grid reference SD 944344 – use this link. Can you see that there is an unnamed stream (a watercourse) between one called Foul Sike (to the north) and another called Waterfall Syke (to the south)? Here it is these days – looks a bit like a…