Tag: ecology
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Filling the Gaps on a Bransdale Hillside
A return to Bransdale, where last winter the National Trust planted 6,000 saplings onto the steep side of Bloworth Slack. The site had been clear-felled, a blank but messy page waiting for a better story than rows of timber grown for profit. To give the youngsters a fighting chance, the usual tree guards went in.…
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Newton Wood and the Afterlife of a Dying Ash
Just after dawn, Newton Wood sits under a light dusting of snow. The sky is a hard, clear blue. Bare deciduous trees stretch their thin arms upward, as if hoping for better weather later. Left of centre stands a prominent ash tree. Its trunk is tall and thick, brutally pruned and cut short. It looks…
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Goldrill Beck Set Free
Mist and drizzle soften the view over upper Patterdale, where Brotherswater draws the eye and Goldrill Beck winds its way across the valley floor. Not long ago this river was forced into a rigid eighteenth-century channel, cut straight alongside the A592 at the edge of the wood beneath Hartsop above How. The result was a…
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The Government’s Proposals to Curb Heather Burning
Gisborough Moor, from across Sleddale, is marked by neat, rectangular patches of scorched heather. These are “swiddens,” the product of controlled burning, a practice designed to create the perfect environment for grouse. The idea is simple: burn the old heather, let fresh shoots grow, and produce an abundance of birds ready to be shot in…
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Scorched Earth: A Cool Burn on Hasty Bank
Ah yes, the wonders of the so-called “cool burn”—a delightful little exercise in setting fire to the heather in supposedly small, controlled patches. The idea, we are told, is to clear out the old heather without charring the peat or moss underneath, thereby avoiding carbon loss and allowing for quick regrowth. The fire, they assure…
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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,…
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Highcliff Nab and Autumn’s Troubling Showstopper
The woodlands are ablaze with reds, oranges, and yellows in what I might call a “dazzling display,” if I were given to such enthusiasms. Recent rain has kept the trees hydrated, and unseasonably warm weather has delayed their annual shedding. How quaint. I am on my way to Guisborough, following the forest track through Hutton…
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Roseberry Common and the “Tragedy” of Our Shared Resources
“Roseberry Common” — the name, so familiar, may scarcely remind us that this is indeed Common land, open for grazing, fuel, and other resources by the Commoners. Though now under the care of the National Trust, Commoners with lingering rights to this land persist like relics, a living exhibit the Trust must tread carefully around,…
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Paradise Lost? The Noble Art of Swidden Burning
Ah, the noble swiddens! That iconic mosaic left by the benevolent, precise art of setting fire to the countryside, all for the good of its charming inhabitants: grouse—who, one imagines, must dance a jolly jig singing ‘hahahahahaha‘ when those nutritious shoots emerge. How delightful to know that we can rely on a “low-temperature” burn, barely a…
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Great Fryup Dale: Cooking Up Change
Nestled in the dramatic expanse of the North York Moors National Park, where heather dominates the moors, trees line the becks in the dales, and the coastline is battered by the North Sea, lies Great Fryup Dale, a place as delectable as its name. It is, by all appearances, a great deal like its sibling,…