The Impacts of Heather and Grassland Burning in the Uplands: Creating Sustainable Strategies

Gareth Clay, University of Durham

Link to project: Sustainable Uplands: Learning to Manage Future Change

The majority of UK uplands are grazed and are rotationally burnt to maintain levels of heather and grass for grazing and grouse management. In doing so, they preserve a landscape style of high amenity and resource value. However, the majority of upland habitats are considered unfavourable and declining due to overgrazing and/or burning. Furthermore, burn regimes have been related to increasing losses of sediment and water colour which threatens water resources in uplands and terrestrial carbon storage in these environments. A recent English Nature review (Tucker 2003) identified both significant research requirements, but also that the effort required to meet these requirements is not practical because it would take a number of years to produce results (20-25 years). Thus, it seems unlikely that science-based management decisions will be possible with regard to upland management. However, as part of the Moor House National Nature Reserve, plots have been set aside to test the effects of moorland management. The Hard Hill plots have been run over several burn cycles and include plots with/without burning and grazing, with burn cycles of 10 and 20 years in a complete factorial design. These plots allow us to piggyback on years of well-recorded management to develop well-founded science that in turn can be used to inform sustainable strategies in conjunction with the competing and complimentary pressures upon the use and management of the uplands. Specifically, the project will answer the following:

i) How do stakeholders perceive burning and does this management practice match with how users of this landscape would like the land to be used in the future? What do stakeholders think will affect the future?

ii) Does the nature and intensity of present burning and grazing regimes have a significant environmental impact upon: flora/fauna, water quality/quantity, carbon storage and sediment production?

iii) Using the enhanced understanding of biophysical relations (question ii) with a thorough assessment of stakeholder visions (question i): What are the consequences of using the stakeholder visions as the basis of management plans, and how might these plans be affected by external factors such as policy reform?

iv) Given the above can we develop strategies, indicators and incentives to improve upland management?