Heathlands – walking the talk

During the morning of 8^th October, in a jam-packed Rhiw Village Hall, we heard lots about heathlands, as you’d expect in a seminar titled ‘Heathlands for the Future’. Then in the afternoon and the following morning we got to walk the talk; seeing and experiencing some of the work underway to restore 5 coastal heathland sites in Llŷn. This is part of 26 projects within the much larger HLF Llŷn Landscape Partnership (Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn). 

Euros Jones of NRW and Arwel Jones, the project manager for Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn, explained that what started off 10 years ago as a conservation project has now taken on a community and economic dimension with a diverse range of partners. The initial funding of £500K from 2004-09 was followed by £1.7m from 2009-15 and hopefully there will be more beyond. Listening to the speakers it sounds as though Llŷn, the triangle from Nefyn to Pwllheli to Bardsey, is ahead of the game in ‘integrated natural resource management’, the new wave of conservation strategy. The partners are pursuing an ecosystem approach and have demonstrated great achievements; but ecosystems need long-term nurturing and now is the time to drive on with it. You can get a flavour of the diverse range of projects from the Llŷn AONB website.

Jan Sherry, heathland ecologist for NRW, and Hilary Kehoe, the heathland project co-ordinator, set the heathland scene. Coastal heathlands, and their dependent species, are in decline due to changes in land use and farm economics. What’s left on Llŷn is a narrow strip of varying quality constricted by improved land; but things here are getting better. 522 Hectares of land have been embraced by the project achieving improvements in vegetation structure through cutting and grazing. Instead of a dense mass of leggy heather and gorse there is now a varied structure which not only looks good but benefits prized species such as chough, linnet and the adder. 

Burning the heath was investigated as a possibility but the conclusion was that the gorse returned rapidly at the expense of heather and other vegetation. Cutting with a flail was better and even more so after a low cut when the cuttings were removed.

Seedbanks varied from site to site; whereas Mynydd Tir Cwmwd had lots of heather seeds Mynydd Bychestyn had barely any. Seeds were collected and spread with the help of local schoolchildren – what looked like a Somme battlefield two years ago has regenerated with masses of heather and minimal gorse. As if to prove a point an accidental fire on a nearby patch had the opposite effect and has seen a resurgence of gorse.

3 year old heathland bedding

As well as agreeing plans for reduced burning and more grazing, which benefit nature, there has been a lot of work to investigate how to improve the economy of the farms. To add local value 19 farmers undertook training in food hygiene and butchery and 5 of these have gone on to process and market their own produce. By-products from the heathland management include heathland bedding which saves time and money and you can read more about this here.

After the tea break Sharon Parr wowed us with what’s going on in the Burren LIFE Project on the west coast of Ireland. There are many parallels with the work here on Llŷn with lots of common sense ideas for making things work on the ground - you can read more about this here.

Fortified with sandwiches and cakes galore we heard a short presentation from Reg at the RSPB about the UK chough survey and the importance of Llŷn which is home to 14% of the UK population. Llŷn chough do not exist in isolation and their destiny is inextricably linked to the populations in Snowdonia and Ynys Môn. The extent of the research and conservation work is immense – this is truly a landscape scale species. You can read more about this here.

Lichenologists don't mind a drop of rain

As the storm clouds gathered we wrapped up in waterproofs and headed across the road to Mynydd y Graig and Penarfynydd Farm. Unfortunately Thomas Jones the farmer was unable to show us around and by the time we reached the trig point on Penarfynydd the lightning was all around with heavy horizontal rain lashing us. Some descended quickly back whilst others plodded on to see the Golden Hair Lichen. The large rocks on which it grows have been fenced in to prevent the ponies getting too close and in particular to stop them scratching their flanks on the extremely rare Lobaria Amplissima.

It wasn’t quite the dream day to visit this stunning farm but you can learn more about it here and see a film of Thomas Jones talking about different aspects of the farm.

Before dinner we all had a chance to look around the excellent £1m Porth y Swnt visitor centre which opened last June and is home to the 2 tonne optic recently removed from Bardsey Lighthouse. Dinner in Tŷ Newydd was complete with ‘son et lumière’ as the thunderstorm continued and high tide waves rolled up to the hotel.

Tim Jones from NRW had the challenging task of talking to us after the feast of local produce. Key points he made were the need to get community and economy into environmental projects and this was clearly the case on Llŷn. Instead of looking at sites in isolation we need to look at and work on whole landscapes and the newly announced ‘area natural resource management trials’ at Dyfi, Tawe and Rhondda were looking to learn from Llŷn.

Some hours later we were back in the same restaurant for breakfast and once more the tide was up, with big waves rolling in. No surfers but a seal, treading water, bobbing up and down whilst looking into the hotel, just metres away. Earlier some guests had seen a baby seal on the slipway – presumably the only safe place to be parked while mum got on with the fishing.

We took the O Ddrws i Ddrws Llŷn Coastal minibus to Bryn Poeth where Kevin Roberts talked to us about heathland bedding and then walked around the coastline to see the Ryetec flail collector in action. Along the way we saw areas where the heath had been improved, areas where bracken used to be rampant and which were now clear of it thanks to initial spraying and subsequent grazing by cattle. There was a marked difference between the two sides of the fence where cattle can and can’t graze – the side without the cattle was a dense mat of vegetation, several inches deep and not receptive to seeds. As we walked into another field it was explained how this used to be heathland up until the 1970s but that it had been ploughed up just days before being designated as an ESA (Environmentally Sensitive Area) – ironic that legislation to protect should be a catalyst for damage.

Compared to the Pembrokeshire heathlands, Llŷn has few plants that are given the chance to flower, due to the uniform grazing of sheep, but there had been a big increase at Bychestyn this summer through grazing with cattle. It was great to see the Welsh Blacks on the edge of the coast with the wild sea and Bardsey beyond. Obviously it was the wrong time of year for us to see flowers but we did get to see Prostrate Broom on the edge of the windswept cliff at Pen y Cil.

Our walk ended on Mynydd y Gwyddel which is farmed by John Williams. The top of the mountain is popular with people coming from the nearby car park to enjoy the view and maybe have a picnic. It’s also where you can see the Spotted Rock Rose, very rare, found just here and on Anglesey. The mountain is grazed only by sheep at present but if the fencing and water supply was improved, then John would graze it with cattle from October to July taking them off for calving and bulling during the busiest time for visitors.

John explained that he would not be going into Glastir as the rules prescribe just 37 sheep during the winter whereas he has a flock of over 150; at this stocking level the unit would not be viable and the site would become overgrown. 37 might be an appropriate stocking level for inland, mountainous areas, but Llŷn has its own climate with resultant vegetation growth; what we need is an area-based approach as opposed to a ‘one size fits all’. The intention of Glastir is to improve the landscape but if John followed the rules he would be rewarded for damaging it! This is one of those situations, as in The Burren, where farmers need to make the decisions and be rewarded if and when they deliver a positive outcome such as species rich grassland. An arbitrary number at an arbitrary date makes no sense in this situation. This site would benefit from a higher level scheme that would reward positive management, such as the scheme in place on Penarfynydd.

Putting structural diversity into the heath

Back at Aberdaron, after sandwiches and soup, we wrapped up the seminar with a discussion. 64 people had signed up for the seminar and most of them had been able to attend at least part which goes to show that ‘heathlands for the future’ is a popular topic. Jon Hudson from NRW said that he had plenty of ideas that he wanted to take back to Pembrokeshire.

Glastir was discussed and we agreed that we needed to lobby for positive change through farmers and if possible take a roadshow to Cardiff. Having said that we felt it would be a good idea to get Carl Sargeant to visit while he is new in post. There was agreement that the partnership should be using the work as a case study to show to politicians and to help shape and influence future environmental schemes.

Ongoing funding for Llŷn was discussed. The ecosystem approach has been trialled and now we need a long term project to drive this agenda forward. Landscape management is not only good for nature, it can also help develop the tourism offer and contribute to maintenance issues around the coastal path. What we’ve got is ‘ready to go’, a solution and not a pipedream.

There had been promising words from the Fund for Nature but nothing concrete yet. LIFE funding had been considered and this may be a sensible route for future funding. Interreg was discussed without much enthusiasm – it’s a shame that The Burren is not on the east coast.

It was felt that Llŷn should aspire to having a Pembrokeshire level of branding; this is slowly happening through the #Ecomuseum brand. See also www.ecoamgueddfa.org

All in all an excellent seminar, a catalyst for networking bringing many parties together, well organised by Hilary Kehoe and members of Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn (Llŷn landscape partnership).

Farmers; not scapegoats but partners in conservation

Common sense is a great thing; when you hear it, you know it makes sense. That’s how I felt, listening to Sharon Parr explain how they farm for conservation in the Burren. It’s a vast area of limestone pavement in the middle of the west coast or Ireland, home to a profusion of wild flowers from March to November, including the Irish Orchid. It’s a hotspot for walkers and tourism and the jewel in the crown of Irish wildlife. Lots of invertebrates and archaeology abounds from Mesolithic to the enclosures era.

Half of it is designated as Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and 6% is a ‘national park’ (with just one member of staff!) but almost all of it is privately owned by farmers who have eked out a living on what is now considered ‘marginal’ land. Whereas in Wales we used to send stock to the uplands in summer and to the lowlands in winter, the Burren farmers traditionally do the reverse, leaving the uplands, with all their flowers, fallow through the summer.

Modern techniques such as feeding silage are not good for the Burren; the consequent pools of slurry around the feeders pour through the limestone karst into the aquifers below. Also, cattle eating silage have less need to roam around grazing the vegetation and in particular the hazel scrub which is prolific here.

Since 2005 the Burren has received significant EU LIFE funding which has harnessed the knowledge and enthusiasm of farmers to operate in a way which is good for farming and good for nature. Whereas the local agri-environment scheme penalises you, for not implementing a meaningless activity (e.g. a 30 metre exclusion zone from monuments which might be relevant on arable farms but serves no purpose in the Burren), the Burren LIFE scheme rewards positive farming. It’s not about the number of stock or the grazing days, it’s about delivering a product and the main measure is species rich grassland. It’s up to the farmer to decide how he delivers the product, if he achieves it through grazing elephants, that’s his business!

Each field is scored (by Sharon or a colleague) from 1 to 10 with the higher score generating more money. 2 or less earns nothing, 3 earns €36 per hectare and 10 is worth €120 per hectare. There is no rule that says you can’t use silage but if you do, then that field will not be eligible for any reward. In recent years silage consumption has dropped by 61% and the trend is towards higher scores for the fields.

The shift away from silage has been helped by the creation of Burren LIFE feed; a concentrate with all the right minerals designed following an investigation of local vegetation. Cattle are given a couple of handfuls each day after Christmas, when grazing becomes less good, and it takes them just a few minutes to eat and lick out the trough as opposed to prolonged sessions at a silage feeder. In this way the cattle are put into good condition for spring calving.  Not only do the cattle get all the essential minerals, but the feed also stimulates them to even more grazing.

There are other possibilities to receive funding for agreed improvements such as scrub control, for gates, internal walls, water supplies etc. These all contribute to the bigger picture of bringing more land under management through appropriate grazing. For these works the farmers fund 25% to 75% of the total cost.

Does it work? The results have been spectacular and the Burren project is held up as an example of best practice – hopefully there will be an ‘afterLIFE’ when the current funding finishes in 2015.

Unlike Glastir in Wales, which has not been taken up by as many farmers as hoped for, the Burren project has been oversubscribed; 345 farmers applied but there was only room to accommodate 159. Those in the scheme have received on average €7,500 per year with the maximum payout €15,000.

I met a Llŷn farmer the following day who told me that under Glastir he would be expected to reduce the number of grazing sheep to just 37 of his flock of over 150. In his view this would be totally impractical and result in the land becoming overgrown and good for no-one. Fortunately farmers like this one have been able to receive targeted items of funding via Partneriaeth Tirlun Llŷn which seems to follow the common sense approach of Burren LIFE!

It also makes sense that these two projects are learning from each other. Sharon Parr was one of the speakers and participants at the Heathlands for the Future seminar held near Aberdaron on 8th to 9th October 2014.

There's a very informative website for the Burren which includes a short atmospheric film.