Photo: Rebecca Cole.
A female stonechat calls from a bilberry bush. Cooperation between farmers and conservationists in England is bringing back “ghost woodlands” and wildlife habitat.
When do tree-planting programs accomplish what they set out to do? That is the question as we hear more and more that some massive initiatives haven’t worked. In a story from Yorkshire we learn that cooperation among different interest groups is one route to success. Another is using native species to reawaken ancient species buried deep in the soil.
Phoebe Weston writes at the Guardian about a restoration effort by both conservationists and farmers to transform barren sheep fells.
“The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost ‘ghost woodlands.’ …
“Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted across these hills in sheep-free enclosures. The results are beginning to be seen: birds and flowers are returning. … Says ecologist Mike Douglas from South Lakes Ecology, who is monitoring birds in the enclosures, ‘We are 10 years into what was ecologically very damaged land.’ …
“Big rewilding projects often happen on private land with limited public access. These enclosures are a result of agreements reached between dozens of farmers on common land with public access. ‘Doing so much tree-planting on a common was groundbreaking,’ says Peter Leeson from the Woodland Trust. …
“Bluebells are popping up and there are patches of bracken, which suggest the soils and seed banks retain the memory of being a woodland despite hundreds of years of sheep grazing. “We call these memories ‘ghost woodlands,’ says Leeson. These ancient woodland indicators could offer a blueprint of where trees should return. …
“Last year, there were 14 breeding species here. Before the enclosure was created, he says, just four would have been found: meadow pipit, skylarks, wren and grey wagtails. Eleven new breeding bird species have been recorded since the original 2016 survey, with numbers increasing year-on-year. ‘I’m surprised by how quickly birds have colonized, and the diversity of species,’ says Douglas. …
“The enclosures were possible thanks to a 10-year government agri-environment scheme, signed by farmers with grazing rights to the fell as part of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, and the owner of the fell, Lonsdale Estates, supported and monitored by the Woodland Trust. …
“Across Europe, conflicts between farmers and conservationists are increasing due to the need for maintaining food production while creating space for nature. This conflict tends to be especially pronounced in the uplands because the land is relatively unproductive for farming. ‘Farmer and conservation collaboration is the real joy,’ Leeson says. ‘We want the same things. We want to be listened to, and heard and involved. I’d say we’re friends now.’
“John Capstick, chair of the Ravenstonedale Common Graziers Association, which hosts 187 hectares (462 acres) of fenced off land, says at first some farmers ‘were dead against it being fenced off. They were frightened it was an ulterior motive to get sheep off the fell.’ …
“In fact, the trees are not proving a threat to hill farming. The money is a lifeline for farmers, who earn as little as £7,500 a year from selling sheep and have been reliant on disappearing government subsidies. The Tebay scheme provides payments of £25,600 a year for maintaining the trees and fences and for loss of grazing rights, which are shared equally between the landowner and the farmers.
“Twenty-five years ago, there were 25 farmers on Tebay common. Now there are 10. For those who still graze on the common, the payments are ‘keeping them going,’ says Tim Winder, chair of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, whose father’s family have been farming for as long as they can remember.
“Now Winder is working with researchers on using the fells for peatland restoration and natural flood management. ‘We have to look at different ways of farming,’ he says. ‘We’ll invite anyone to work with us.’
“In the years to come, patches of mature woodland and scrubland will develop here, and common birds such as great tits, blue tits, dunnocks and blackbirds, will move in, says Douglas. It is a mystery what these hills may have looked like hundreds of years ago – no detailed historical records exist. Ghost woodlands speak of not only what has been lost, but what could one day return. ‘This was a leap in the dark for the farmers, as much as anyone else,’ says Leeson. ‘Hats off to them.’ “
More at the Guardian, here.
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