Latest news with #Molinia
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
There's an invader turning huge swathes of Britain into deserts – and these dead zones are spreading
Deserts are spreading across great tracts of Britain, yet few people seem to have noticed, and fewer still appear to care. It is one of those astonishing situations I keep encountering: in which vast, systemic problems – in this case, I believe, covering thousands of square kilometres – hide in plain sight. I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I've finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry. In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places. Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans. Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones. What I'm talking about are the places now dominated by a single plant species, called Molinia caerulea or purple moor-grass. Over the past 50 years, it has swarmed across vast upland areas: in much of Wales, on Dartmoor, Exmoor, in the Pennines, Peak District, North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales and many parts of Scotland. Molinia wastes are dismal places, grey-brown for much of the year, in which only the wind moves. As I know from bitter experience, you can explore them all day and see scarcely a bird or even an insect. Not that you would wish to walk there. The grass forms high tussocks through which it is almost impossible to push. As it happens, most of the places that have succumbed to Molinia monoculture are 'access land'. Much of the pittance of England and Wales in which we are allowed to walk freely has become inaccessible. In a great victory a fortnight ago, the supreme court ruled that we have a right to wild camp on Dartmoor. But on many parts of the moor, you wouldn't want to exercise it. As soon as the grass takes hold, all opportunities for enjoyment and employment cease. Molinia challenges the definition of an invasive species. The term is supposed to refer only to non-native organisms. But while it has always been part of our upland flora, it appears to have spread further and faster than any introduced plant in the UK, and with greater ecological consequences. It is uncontrolled by herbivores, disease or natural successional processes (transitions to other plant communities). In fact, it stops these processes in their tracks. Given the scale of the problem, it is remarkably little studied and discussed. I cannot find even a reliable estimate of the area affected: the most recent in England is nearly 10 years old, and I can discover none for Wales or Scotland. But in the southern Cambrian Mountains alone, judging by a combination of my walks and satellite imagery, there appears to be a dead zone covering roughly 300 sq km, in which little but this one species grows. Most of central Dartmoor is now Molinia desert, and just as disheartening and hard to traverse. Why is this happening? It seems to be a combination of forces. One is 'headage payments': subsidies that were issued in the second half of the 20th century, which paid farmers for the number of animals they kept. They created an incentive to cram the land with as many sheep and cattle as possible. This, in combination with burning moorland to produce fresh shoots for the livestock to eat, seems in some places to have pushed ecosystems beyond their tipping points. Even, as in parts of the Cambrians, where there have been no sheep grazing for 40 years, as there's nothing left to eat (sheep will scarcely touch Molinia), there has been no recovery. Another likely factor is nitrogen deposition. Nitrogen compounds rain down on Britain's habitats at a rate of roughly 29kg per hectare per year. They are produced by livestock farming, traffic and industry. Drainage (largely for farming) also appears to accelerate the spread: Molinia thrives as peat dries out. The Dartmoor ecologist and nature campaigner Tony Whitehead tells me that the degradation of peat caused by drainage, excavation, burning and grazing pressure is likely to be the primary accelerant. Burning in particular – carried out by sheep farmers on Dartmoor and Exmoor and by grouse shoots on northern English moors and in Scotland – favours the plant. While other species are destroyed, Molinia is protected by its deep roots and tussocks, which guard its buds. Various solutions are proposed, but few are satisfactory. One approach is to blast the grass with the herbicide glyphosate. It works for a while, but leaves an even grimmer waste, likely to be colonised again by Molinia. Others propose yet more burning, and/or grazing with cattle or ponies: temporary 'solutions' that look like blood-letting to cure anaemia. Whitehead has watched what happens: the animals graze around the edges of the Molinia, eating only small amounts, while continuing to knock back other plant species. After early summer, they won't touch the stuff, as its nutritional value declines steeply. A new report by the government agency Natural England states that livestock grazing is not required to protect the main habitat type – blanket mire – that Molinia threatens. Rewetting the land, by blocking drains and building bunds and perhaps, as one team is attempting, planting clumps of sphagnum moss among the grass, in order to restore the peat, seems to be the only means of reviving blanket mire. It also makes the land less prone to fire. In other places, we should be encouraging the return of trees, through planting and excluding livestock. Most of the areas overtaken by Molinia have a temperature and moisture range that would favour temperate rainforest: a vanishingly rare, rich and complex habitat. As the trees mature, they should shade out the grass. In some wet areas, I'd like to see the return of water-tolerant species such as alder, downy birch and willow, to restore upland carr, another rich and scarce habitat. But anyone who wants to rewild upland ecosystems hits a wall of vested interests – mostly sheep farmers and grouse moor owners – who, like the commercial fishing sector, insist on doing the wrong thing until it destroys their own industry. Where is the urgent government programme? Where is there even official acknowledgment that we have a problem? To fix something, first you must see it. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
'Wildfire sent years of work up in flames'
For years, conservationists have been working to bring native trees back to the spectacular Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran. But a decade of effort was wiped out in days when a wildfire ripped across the valley earlier this month. "It was years of our work going up in flames," Kate Sampson, the National Trust for Scotland's senior ranger on Arran, told BBC Scotland News. "We just have to start again. "We've lost 10 years of conservation work and effort but we just have to pick ourselves up." The blaze began on Thursday 10 April and was not fully extinguished until the following Sunday. By the time the fire was out it had destroyed 27,000 trees as well as killing hundreds of reptiles. Much of the Glen Rosa valley was left looking like a charred and blackened moonscape, with little sign of the years of work from the National Trust for Scotland, which is responsible for the area. According to the trust, thousands of years ago the glen would have been a native woodland but it was left bare by human intervention such as grazing sheep and deer. It has been trying to restore the woodlands by introducing downy birch, sessile oak, hazel, willow, aspen and alder as well as endangered tree species such as Arran whitebeam. Then, two weeks ago, Ms Sampson could do nothing but watch as years of effort were destroyed. She was at the scene within minutes of the blaze starting on grassland at the bottom of the valley. "It was shooting up the hill really fast because of the dry conditions and the wind," she told BBC Scotland News. "From then on in, it was disaster management." As well as firefighters, local volunteers worked around the clock to try to keep the wildfire under control. Ms Sampson said: "The moorland was so tinder-dry and we had so much dead bracken and Molinia grass, so it just spread really fast across the moorland. "There wasn't much we could do to stop it." In the days after the fire, Ms Sampson and a group of naturalists surveyed the land to assess the potential impact of the wildlife. "It's quite tough to see, it's not just the trees that are gone, all the wildlife in the glen has been devastated too," she said. "We had a group come and we monitored the glen but instead of monitoring live animals we had to record dead bodies. "We had 72 dead slow worms, 25 dead adders, countless frogs and lizards, all dead as well." As we walked through the valley, Ms Sampson discovered a live frog and long worm in among the scorched grass. In the two weeks since the fire, she's only come across a handful of reptiles still alive. "It's hard to know the long-term impacts but the ecology has been totally disrupted and it's going to take a long time for that to recover," she said. Initial investigations have suggested the fire could have started when dry ground was ignited when sun shone through a discarded glass bottle but the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has not confirmed a cause. The SFRS had put a wildfire warning in place covering all of Scotland a week before the Glen Rosa blaze. Ricky Donachie, the SFRS station commander for Arran, told the BBC the blaze was classed as a "significant wildfire". "Over the wildfire warning period, which lasted from 3 - 9 April, our control rooms received over 5,000 calls," he said. "Over 1,000 of them were for grassland and wildfire callouts, with 19 of them in the significant category. It shows the importance of heeding any warnings." Mr Donachie warned against lighting fires and barbeques in the countryside. Despite the devastation to the conservation work in Glen Rosa, Ms Sampson remains positive. "If we can get it restarted then we might be able to make this land more resilient to fire," she said. "If we can establish really good woodlands here, it will not only have great benefits for wildlife and biodiversity but the woodland itself can act as a firebreak." Work to replant trees in the Glen Rosa valley has already begun and a fundraising appeal to help revitalise the area has so far raised £12,000. This weekend, a group of almost 100 volunteers helped plant 6,000 trees. Beside the beauty spot of the blue pool at Glen Rosa, a shoot from one of the newly-planted trees stands out on the blackened hillside. "It's an Arran whitebeam plant." Ms Sampson says. "It's one of the rarest trees in the world and we only have them here on Arran. This can be our first tree of hope." Glass bottle likely started Arran wildfire - ranger Extreme wildfire warning in final day with rain to come Scotland has hottest day so far as wildfires continue
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
'Wildfire sent years of work up in flames'
For years, conservationists have been working to bring native trees back to the spectacular Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran. But a decade of effort was wiped out in days when a wildfire ripped across the valley earlier this month. "It was years of our work going up in flames," Kate Sampson, the National Trust for Scotland's senior ranger on Arran, told BBC Scotland News. "We just have to start again. "We've lost 10 years of conservation work and effort but we just have to pick ourselves up." The blaze began on Thursday 10 April and was not fully extinguished until the following Sunday. By the time the fire was out it had destroyed 27,000 trees as well as killing hundreds of reptiles. Much of the Glen Rosa valley was left looking like a charred and blackened moonscape, with little sign of the years of work from the National Trust for Scotland, which is responsible for the area. According to the trust, thousands of years ago the glen would have been a native woodland but it was left bare by human intervention such as grazing sheep and deer. It has been trying to restore the woodlands by introducing downy birch, sessile oak, hazel, willow, aspen and alder as well as endangered tree species such as Arran whitebeam. Then, two weeks ago, Ms Sampson could do nothing but watch as years of effort were destroyed. She was at the scene within minutes of the blaze starting on grassland at the bottom of the valley. "It was shooting up the hill really fast because of the dry conditions and the wind," she told BBC Scotland News. "From then on in, it was disaster management." As well as firefighters, local volunteers worked around the clock to try to keep the wildfire under control. Ms Sampson said: "The moorland was so tinder-dry and we had so much dead bracken and Molinia grass, so it just spread really fast across the moorland. "There wasn't much we could do to stop it." In the days after the fire, Ms Sampson and a group of naturalists surveyed the land to assess the potential impact of the wildlife. "It's quite tough to see, it's not just the trees that are gone, all the wildlife in the glen has been devastated too," she said. "We had a group come and we monitored the glen but instead of monitoring live animals we had to record dead bodies. "We had 72 dead slow worms, 25 dead adders, countless frogs and lizards, all dead as well." As we walked through the valley, Ms Sampson discovered a live frog and long worm in among the scorched grass. In the two weeks since the fire, she's only come across a handful of reptiles still alive. "It's hard to know the long-term impacts but the ecology has been totally disrupted and it's going to take a long time for that to recover," she said. Initial investigations have suggested the fire could have started when dry ground was ignited when sun shone through a discarded glass bottle but the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has not confirmed a cause. The SFRS had put a wildfire warning in place covering all of Scotland a week before the Glen Rosa blaze. Ricky Donachie, the SFRS station commander for Arran, told the BBC the blaze was classed as a "significant wildfire". "Over the wildfire warning period, which lasted from 3 - 9 April, our control rooms received over 5,000 calls," he said. "Over 1,000 of them were for grassland and wildfire callouts, with 19 of them in the significant category. It shows the importance of heeding any warnings." Mr Donachie warned against lighting fires and barbeques in the countryside. Despite the devastation to the conservation work in Glen Rosa, Ms Sampson remains positive. "If we can get it restarted then we might be able to make this land more resilient to fire," she said. "If we can establish really good woodlands here, it will not only have great benefits for wildlife and biodiversity but the woodland itself can act as a firebreak." Work to replant trees in the Glen Rosa valley has already begun and a fundraising appeal to help revitalise the area has so far raised £12,000. This weekend, a group of almost 100 volunteers helped plant 6,000 trees. Beside the beauty spot of the blue pool at Glen Rosa, a shoot from one of the newly-planted trees stands out on the blackened hillside. "It's an Arran whitebeam plant." Ms Sampson says. "It's one of the rarest trees in the world and we only have them here on Arran. This can be our first tree of hope." Glass bottle likely started Arran wildfire - ranger Extreme wildfire warning in final day with rain to come Scotland has hottest day so far as wildfires continue
BBC News
28-04-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
'Arran wildfire sent 10 years of work up in flames'
For years, conservationists have been working to bring native trees back to the spectacular Glen Rosa on the Isle of a decade of effort was wiped out in days when a wildfire ripped across the valley earlier this month."It was years of our work going up in flames," Kate Sampson, the National Trust for Scotland's senior ranger on Arran, told BBC Scotland News. "We just have to start again."We've lost 10 years of conservation work and effort but we just have to pick ourselves up." The blaze began on Thursday 10 April and was not fully extinguished until the following the time the fire was out it had destroyed 27,000 trees as well as killing hundreds of of the Glen Rosa valley was left looking like a charred and blackened moonscape, with little sign of the years of work from the National Trust for Scotland, which is responsible for the to the trust, thousands of years ago the glen would have been a native woodland but it was left bare by human intervention such as grazing sheep and has been trying to restore the woodlands by introducing downy birch, sessile oak, hazel, willow, aspen and alder as well as endangered tree species such as Arran whitebeam. Then, two weeks ago, Ms Sampson could do nothing but watch as years of effort were was at the scene within minutes of the blaze starting on grassland at the bottom of the valley. "It was shooting up the hill really fast because of the dry conditions and the wind," she told BBC Scotland News. "From then on in, it was disaster management." As well as firefighters, local volunteers worked around the clock to try to keep the wildfire under Sampson said: "The moorland was so tinder-dry and we had so much dead bracken and Molinia grass, so it just spread really fast across the moorland. "There wasn't much we could do to stop it."In the days after the fire, Ms Sampson and a group of naturalists surveyed the land to assess the potential impact of the wildlife."It's quite tough to see, it's not just the trees that are gone, all the wildlife in the glen has been devastated too," she said. "We had a group come and we monitored the glen but instead of monitoring live animals we had to record dead bodies. "We had 72 dead slow worms, 25 dead adders, countless frogs and lizards, all dead as well." As we walked through the valley, Ms Sampson discovered a live frog and long worm in among the scorched grass. In the two weeks since the fire, she's only come across a handful of reptiles still alive."It's hard to know the long-term impacts but the ecology has been totally disrupted and it's going to take a long time for that to recover," she said. What caused the wildfire? Initial investigations have suggested the fire could have started when dry ground was ignited when sun shone through a discarded glass bottle but the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has not confirmed a SFRS had put a wildfire warning in place covering all of Scotland a week before the Glen Rosa blaze. Ricky Donachie, the SFRS station commander for Arran, told the BBC the blaze was classed as a "significant wildfire". "Over the wildfire warning period, which lasted from 3 - 9 April, our control rooms received over 5,000 calls," he said. "Over 1,000 of them were for grassland and wildfire callouts, with 19 of them in the significant category. It shows the importance of heeding any warnings."Mr Donachie warned against lighting fires and barbeques in the countryside. Despite the devastation to the conservation work in Glen Rosa, Ms Sampson remains positive."If we can get it restarted then we might be able to make this land more resilient to fire," she said. "If we can establish really good woodlands here, it will not only have great benefits for wildlife and biodiversity but the woodland itself can act as a firebreak."Work to replant trees in the Glen Rosa valley has already begun and a fundraising appeal to help revitalise the area has so far raised £12, weekend, a group of almost 100 volunteers helped plant 6,000 trees. Beside the beauty spot of the blue pool at Glen Rosa, a shoot from one of the newly-planted trees stands out on the blackened hillside."It's an Arran whitebeam plant." Ms Sampson says. "It's one of the rarest trees in the world and we only have them here on Arran. This can be our first tree of hope."
The Guardian
22-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
How to garden in spring (and the best tools for the job)
The Earth's orbit of the sun is just long enough that, by the time spring rolls back around, we have all but forgotten the sumptuous reality of the season: how the extended sunlight fills our souls; how the growing green reinvigorates the spirit; how cherry blossom against a blue sky manifests something bigger than beauty alone. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. As a gardener, I can wholeheartedly affirm that one of the best ways to enjoy spring is to actively engage with it. Spring is for doing: cutting back perennials; tying and training roses; pruning shrubs. Over the years, I have been leaving more and more of the garden tidy-up for spring, having once seen much of this off in autumn. Common horticultural practice now recognises the importance of leaving dead stems and seed heads standing over winter as shelter and forage for wildlife, so even my small garden requires a good deal of maintenance at this time of year. Plenty of material, then, to set 12 pairs of secateurs on. First off, the ornamental grasses – my scattered clumps of Molinia, Pennisetum and Chasmanthium – needed cutting down to ground level, their new shoots beginning to mingle with the straw of spent stems. Perennials, including Aster, Agastache, Hylotelephium and Eutrochium, with brittle, yellowing stems, were similarly due a chop. Next, the shrubs: a now vigorous Buddleia in our sun trap required fairly harsh treatment, reducing each limb in advance of new seismic growth; the black elder was also scaled back, and there was sculpting work to undertake on my two young Viburnums. Being surrounded by domestic fencing, our little garden depends on the ample coverage of climbing roses: these needed further deadheading and new string ties added to control the rapid new growth (cutting cleanly through string, I often find, separates the good secateurs from the dull). The great advantage of trying out a range of secateurs was the opportunity to consider new options. Due to their everyday utility, gardeners become very attached to certain brands and models – I definitely have. When I began my first ever gardening job, joining a garden maintenance company doing the rounds of upmarket London homes, the director urged new recruits to use a particular brand of secateurs, for the simple reason that a good pair saves time, money and plants; clean cuts in place of butchery. And so for almost two decades, I've used the same model, and thanks to their robustness and reliability, I've replaced them only once (after losing a pair down the leg of my pond waders …). Eager for change, I approached the testing with peak-geek scrutiny, registering their every quality as I went snipping beneath an extraordinarily blue spring sky: their comfort and feel, their cut and heft; how well they clasped and unclasped, and even how easily they could be spotted in the herbage if dropped (secateurs are notorious escapers whenever misplaced). My final task in the garden was to plant a new rose, a shrubby, semi-climbing Rosa x odorata mutabilis, with blooms that change from apricot to ruby-red. As with all newly planted roses, I chopped its stems back to fresh buds (teaser: saving this privilege for my new favourite pair), and in doing so marked the unequivocal return of glorious, galvanising spring. Sunscreen and snail slime: what skincare experts do – and don't do – to their skin The best espresso machines to unleash your inner barista at home, tested 'Has the texture of feta, but not much else': the best (and worst) supermarket feta cheese, tested Beat brain rot: clear your mind with 55 screen-free activities, from birdwatching to colouring books Rainbow vases, vintage soap dishes and crystal bike bells: 15 colourful pick-me-ups to elevate your everyday It's hard to pay attention to the first beautiful blooms of spring if you're distracted by the filthy state of your patio or decking. A good pressure washer will make that all-important spring tidy-up less of a back-breaking experience (and make for very satisfying before-and-after photos, too). Our reviewer Andy Shaw has been out tackling his patio, his car and a (very grateful) neighbour's decking to sort the best from the rest. Monica HorridgeDeputy editor, the Filter A brave editor at the Filter once went camping in Britain over the early May bank holiday and had to scrape frost off her tent in the morning. But there are upsides: campsites are often blissfully uncrowded, and as long as you take lots of blankets for the night, the days can be glorious. Don't forget your head torch for evening dog walks and loo trips (read our comprehensive review of the best head torches before you buy one). What's your most hated cleaning job (you do clean your house, don't you)? The loo? The oven? The windows? The stairs? Or trying to get rid of the dust that settles on top of books? And is there anything that makes these jobs easier? Let us know by emailing us at thefilter@
