Purple haze and scorched earth

It’s late summer in the Colne Valley, and the heather is blooming. The moors above Marsden are their customary purple, and the air dusty and smoky-sweet with pollen.

Look closely though, and it is clear that all is not right. Close Moss is purple, but it’s the wrong kind of purple. Instead of heather, the moor is clothed in tussocks of coarse purple moor grass

At first glance, the scene is a remarkable illustration of nature’s powers of regeneration after a series of fires culminating in a devastating 24-hour conflagration affecting 1,235 acres and left some areas of peat still smouldering a week later.

The National Trust, which owns the moor, works hard to publicise the dangers of fire: “It’s important people realise just how easy they are to start and how quickly they can become uncontrollable,” says the Trust’s countryside manager, Gemma Wren. Four months on, she says the purple moor grass is bad news, but predictable. “We knew it would grow back first, and it looks fine,” Gemma says, “but it chokes out the other plants and shrubs. We’re left with a monoculture. It’s no good for invertebrates, such as flies and beetles, who need a variety of food and habitats. And if it’s no good for them, it’s no good for the birds who also find it difficult to hide and nest in. And it’s no good for walkers because it’s really difficult to walk across. Frankly, it’s a menace.”

Moor grass also burns more easily than heather. This is where Alison Mills’s job as community warden comes into its own. Alison works with children, adults, people with learning difficulties and young offenders, encouraging them onto the moors. “Some of the local children never visit the moors,” she says. “We are teaching them about the importance of not setting fires and of reporting them.”

Alison believes that this year’s fires have struck a particular chord. “They were the biggest for years and very visible. People could see both what was happening and the aftermath from the A62 and they kept asking us what was happening and if there was anything they could do.”

And now the opportunity to help has arrived. Over the coming weeks the Trust will begin cutting back the moor grass in preparation for sowing heather seed.

“I’ll be working with our usual community groups, but we’ll also be running special events where we’ll be showing people how to collect the seeds from the heather. We’ll be collecting as much as possible ourselves since it’s expensive to buy.”

And saving money is important this year, since the estate is increasingly strapped for cash. “We make hardly any money ourselves,” Alison explains. “The usual sources, such as car parks, shops, entry fees or cafés aren’t an option for us, so we’re reliant on funding from other sources.”

Until now, the estate has depended on two major sources of funds, the National Trust and Natural England. But Natural England’s budget has been slashed by 30 per cent this year and there is no longer the money to fund capital projects.

“It’s a major blow,” says Judith Patrick, the Trust’s West Yorkshire countryside property manager. “We used the money we got from Natural England to fund our moorland restoration projects. We’re still in Environmental Stewardship agreements with Natural England, which govern what we have to do to conserve the moor. But the funding that will end completely next March.”

The estate is trying to raise money from elsewhere – for example the Landfill Communities Fund – and hopes that in the future more of the moor will be put into Higher Level Stewardship agreements with Natural England, which continue to be funded. And the National Trust has revitalised its Yorkshire Moors and Dales Appeal which will be used to help not only Marsden Moor, but also Yorkshire’s other four countryside properties that have limited income-generating opportunities – Hardcastle Crags, Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire Moors and Brimham Rocks. But in the meantime it’s all hands on deck. The heather is blooming on Marsden Moor and, in the words of the old song, “will you go, lassie go?”.

RENEWING THE HEATHER

The National Trust would like to hear from anyone interested in helping with these projects.

For more information about September’s events contact the Marsden Moor Estate on 01484 847016 or see the estate’s website at www.nationaltrust. org.uk/marsdenmoor.

For more information about the Yorkshire Moors and Dales Appeal see, http:// www.nationaltrust. org.uk/main/w-global /w-localtoyou/w-yorkshire_ne/w-yorkshire_ne-moorsanddalesappeal. htm