UNITED KINGDOM-THE MOORS.
There is a growing argument going on in high places and it concerns the linkage between our landscape’s past, and its future. Some profound questions are being asked. What, for example, should our natural environment look like – and is the answer in any way related to how it used to be before mankind arrived on the scene?
Ask most people to name England’s most natural landscapes and they will probably point towards the wild uplands in general, and to the high moorlands in particular.
What many won’t realise is the moors look the way they do today thanks largely to mankind and his grazing animals.
Take chomping beasts like cattle and sheep out of the equation, and those wild empty spaces would change appearance very quickly. Within a couple of decades there would be widespread "scrubbing over" with indigenous, fast growing, species of tree such as rowan and birch self-seeding their way out from the steep sheltered valleys to encroach upon on the heather moors By the end of this century, Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin Moor would be nothing more than very large, impenetrable, woodlands.
It’s a fact which causes some people to ask if such places were covered by impenetrable woodland more than 8,000 or 9,000 years ago, before the very first land-clearing humans arrived.
Or did giant herds of beasts such as bison, or the massive extinct aurochs, manage to maintain a more open landscape on the high plateaus by marching around munching every edible thing in sight?
Many people prefer to think mankind and his grazing animals created the wide open moors – but some, like me, go for the prehistoric option.
I have seen the bones of an aurochs which was excavated near Porlock on Exmoor and it was a very large ruminant indeed – it would have required a great deal of grazing land upon which to fuel its massive frame.
Even the experts are divided – some say seeds and other material found preserved in the peat prove the existence of thick woodland cover – others claim the very same evidence paints a picture of a mixed landscape consisting of open pasture dotted with clumps and copses of trees.
The entire argument would be purely academic if it were not for a problem that is, at present, threatening to overturn the today’s status quo. Given that the native, prehistoric, grazers like bison and aurochs have long gone – what happens if mankind and his herds and flocks also disappear?
Here is the rub of the problem – there is a real danger that the doomsday scenario of a scrub-covered, smothered, moorland could occur.
Why? Because the average annual income of an upland farm business in the Westcountry is less than £10,000.
If the farmer takes out anything which could be described as a living wage, then the farm makes a loss. And financially, things are projected to get a lot, lot worse for the upland farmers whose animals keep the hills the way we like them.
It is a conundrum which took the Western Morning News to the top of Bodmin Moor one freezing snowy day recently. We were there at the invitation of the South West Uplands Federation (SWUF) to meet farmer Steve Nankivell who is fighting a rearguard action to save the region’s highland farms.
First we spoke to the federation’s spokesman, John Waldon, and we asked him to tell us about the work of his organisation.
"The federation was formed by hill farmers to promote the fact that they were facing really uncertain times and real financial hardship," said Mr Waldon as we spoke in the doorway of a dripping barn, not far from the village of St Breward.
"They were unable to deliver that wealth of public benefits that people have taken for granted on the South West hills," he said, referring to the arguments of moorland grazing outlined already in this article.
"Hill farmers throughout the UK are having a bad time at the moment because of the way the subsidy schemes ended and the new payment schemes started – but, particularly in the South West of England, the amount of money people were paid in the past to what they are receiving now has fallen dramatically – and it’s causing real hardship.
"The biggest problem most people face on the hills is caused by the single [farm] payment," Mr Waldon explained. "This is a payment all farmers receive – but those on the hills, ironically, receive less than those who farm in the lowlands.
"The South West moorlands – Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor and Exmoor – are fantastic areas for open access recreation. These are all areas that are kept open by grazing livestock – provided by farmers.
"They also contain 10 per cent of the nation’s archaeological sites," Mr Waldon went on. "They’ve also got really wild areas where biodiversity or natural history is so important – breeding curlews, the mires with snipe – these areas are really very valuable to the South West tourist industry.
"If the hill farmer doesn’t receive sufficient reward for all these benefits then many will leave the moors and we will see fewer and fewer animals on the moorland and the loss of those public benefits. So it is essential to see a better reward for putting animals on the open moorland.
"I don’t think the hill farmers are asking for more new money," concluded Mr Waldon. "What they are saying is the present system is really unfair – we’re seeing a lot of money going to the lowlands farmers who are providing very little in the terms of public benefit – and it’s really about turning that around to ensure the hill farmer sees an adequate amount of that money."
So much for the hill-farm political overview. How does all this effect a man whose livelihood depends on what he can and can’t do to earn a living on the moors? Steve Nankivell’s family has been farming in the St Breward area for generations on land which rises from a windy 750 feet, to a positively windswept 1,000 feet.
One of the main problems, according to Mr Nankivell, is the closed period set down by English Nature when farm animals simply aren’t allowed out on the open commons.
"There’s a closed period through the winter for cattle and for sheep and it does make it difficult when you’ve got to put stock on and take it off to comply with the various stocking rates of the (grant payment) scheme," said Mr Nankivell, who is concerned the potential disappearance of Westcountry hill farms could harm the nation’s meat trade in general.
"One of the biggest benefits of the moor was that you could over-winter cows cheaply.
"The nucleus of the breeding herds and flocks would diminish to a point that the rest of the English livestock industry would suffer – because this is where the breeding herds and flocks are kept," he told us, referring to the age-old system in which animals who being life on the hill are sent to – or sold to – farms in the warmer more fertile lowlands to be "finished", or fattened.
How about the appearance of the moorland – was that already changing now that fewer beasts are being kept out on the hill?
"Already there’s quite a difference," replied Mr Nankivell. "The stock has been greatly reduced on the moor – and people say to me: ’Where are the stock?’ People like to come up on the moors and see the cattle and sheep. Grazing – and particularly grazing through the winter – would keep on top of the mollinia (an invasive type of moorland grass) and the European gorse," he added.
"And there’s a wealth of archaeology out there on the moor," said Mr Nankivell, pointing towards empty, snow-bound, Emblance Downs. "We’ve got at least 35 scheduled monuments on it – it goes back thousands of years and it
