Repairing the Damage: A Belated Attempt to Save the Moors

In 1955, Bill Cowley had the bright idea of establishing a long-distance walk across the North York Moors, from Osmotherley to Ravenscar. By the late 1970s, the Lyke Wake Walk had become a rite of passage for the outdoor-obsessed, with an estimated 18,000 people a year trudging the 42-mile route. Unsurprisingly, by the next decade, people began to notice that thousands of heavy boots were not exactly kind to the delicate peat moorlands. A publicity campaign was launched in 1986 to stem the damage, and numbers dropped to around 7,500. But then, surprisingly, the numbers crept back up again, and by the early 1990s, about 12,000 people were still marching through.

No doubt, in the years since, a mix of environmental awareness, shifting trends, and the proliferation of other long-distance walks has reduced the number of crossings. However, the damage done during those peak years of the late 20th century remains. Once the ground has been worn into a gully, rainwater helpfully makes it worse.

I recall the state of this section, a head-height gully marking the parish boundary between Rosedale and Glaisdale. It was never an official Right of Way, but boundaries have a habit of attracting footsteps over the centuries.

It is, therefore, a rare pleasure to see that some effort has gone into repairing the damage. In the photograph, coir logs have been used to slow down surface water flowing down the eroded gullies. This helps retain rainfall, trap sediment, and encourage the return of bog vegetation such as Cottongrasses, Sphagnum mosses, Crowberry, and Bilberry¹Peatland Restoration – Salix https://www.salixrw.com/peatland-restoration/.

Coir, for those unfamiliar, is a by-product of coconut husks. The material, imported from Sri Lanka in compacted bales, is biodegradable and, conveniently, does not release anything toxic as it breaks down. These small rolls have been designed specifically for peatland restoration, offering a fitting irony: a tropical product shipped halfway around the world to undo the damage caused by local walkers²Yorkshire Peat Partnership https://www.yppartnership.org.uk/.

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  Peatland Restoration – Salix https://www.salixrw.com/peatland-restoration/
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  Yorkshire Peat Partnership https://www.yppartnership.org.uk/