Stangend Rigg, County Durham

Heather Moor Management in Upper Weardale

Uploader's Comments

This image shows well a modern technique of managing heather moorland for grouse 'cultivation'. Red grouse require heather for shelter and for food, preferring young shoots for the latter. In order to provide varieties of heather growth, management entails burning of areas which then re-grow providing plenty of new, tender shoots. In the past, this has involved a small team of estate workers controlling the burn by beating out the flames where the fire was not wanted to travel; control was imprecise and led to a pattern of oddly sized and shaped areas of heather on a moor. Nowadays most heather moors are burnt in a more controlled way by mowing lanes around the area to be burnt, the lanes then act as firebreaks; one is seen in the photo running uphill away from the camera position. The use of this method means that a heather burn can be controlled by one person and leads to a much more regular, geometric patterning of heather moorland.

Uploaded to Geograph by Trevor Littlewood on 22 August 2010

Creative Commons License Photo © Trevor Littlewood, 22 August 2010. Licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons licence

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