Differing values in an ecosystem. Or, a sticky end to a Sherlock Holmes re-enactment
This post is related to the Futurelearn course Valuing Nature. At the end of week 1, we've been set this task:-
Kinder Scout is a high plateau in the gritstone part of the South Pennines. In character, it is a roughly level area of heather moor and peat bogs, mostly above 600m of elevation, and surrounded by steep grass slopes and rocky outcrops eroded by many 'cloughs' - the local name for a steep tumbling stream. Many cloughs plunge into small areas of woodland, and some of this is quite ancient because the land is difficult to plant and harvest. The valleys below - 'dales' in the local dialect - are sparsely inhabited and mostly given to sheep farming because very little else will grow there. It's a very popular place to hike, partly because of the wild landscape, and partly because it is close to several major cities (Sheffield and Manchester in particular). It's also the start of the Pennine Way, perhaps the premier long distance trail in the UK.
It's an important natural resource in a number of ways. The moorland landscape and wooded slopes support a variety of specialist moor and bog plants, such as sphagnum moss, bilberry, heather, cottongrass and bog asphodel. It's also a haven for mountain hares, red grouse, short-eared owls and merlins. None of these are exactly common in England. According to the National Park website: "The Peak District supports 161 species that have been identified as priorities for the UK Biodiversity Action Plan because they are at risk of being lost from our countryside." Standing high above the surrounding plains of the English Midlands, the Dark Peak catches a lot of rain, much of which is caught in reservoirs to supply the water needs of surrounding cities. And, as we know from the climate science course, peat bogs sequester a lot of carbon, and thus act as a useful buffer against global warming.
My association with Kinder Scout. I've been hiking there for many years (there are photos from some recent trips here, here and here). Especially during the year after my first wife's death from cancer, I spent a lot of time walking its gritstone edges. On these solitary walks I also became much more familiar with the central plateau away from the edges. I wandered deep into the wilder parts by following the summit streams uphill and scrambling up over the heather and bilberry hillocks. When there was snow and the ground was frozen, I found you could literally walk anywhere. For hours at a time, you would see very few people, with only the tracks of mountain hares and red grouse for company (photos here). But at that time, the natural environment of the plateau was quite degraded and there were lots of places where the vegetation had almost all gone, leaving big areas of bare peat. I confess I didn't think much about the environmental aspects then. For a preoccupied walker, the degradation was convenient. It was easy and safe to wander freely across the plateau. When bare peat is wet (quite often!) it is horrible, sticky black stuff. But, as long as it's not too deep (in other words, no higher than your boots), it's fairly safe to walk over. In drier conditions, bare peat is quite firm and in summer it can dry out completely to a powder. Whether initially wet or dry, peat erodes very easily when it rains, unless there is something to block the flow of water off the hill. But regular erosion means the peat never becomes deep. Perfect for the walker! Even better, because most people who hike on Kinder Scout are not confident enough to leave the clear paths that follow the edges. So to venture into the heart of the mountain often means you can be completely alone. But my good fortune was not set to last...
A muddy awakening. Fast forward a couple of years, and I was back again - but not alone this time. With my new partner Angela. Like me, she had been widowed a couple of years earlier, and since we met we had been showing each other our favourite places. So naturally one weekend we hiked up Kinder Scout. "Follow me," I said, "I know this plateau like the back of my hand!" Hah! What hubris! They say pride goes before a fall, and I was about to have one...
On the Peak District National Park website, you can read about their Biodiversity Action Plan. This is designed to protect and restore moorland mountain habitats in places like Kinder Scout. One element of this is "re-vegetation of bare peat and gully blocking to retain water..." As Angela and I walked towards the centre of the plateau, I noticed large bags full of heather seedlings that had been dropped there by helicopter, ready for planting by conservation volunteers. Re-vegetation... hmm. I also noticed some summit cloughs had been dammed by stone walls almost 2 metres high. Unfortunately I didn't think about the consequences of that until a few minutes later, when I met them in a rather dramatic way. We walked on and came to an area of bare black peat, perhaps 2 metres across. The surface of the peat was smooth, wet and shiny, but I knew it would be only a few centimetres deep. I strode confidently across, as I had done so many times before. However, instead of crossing easily to the other side, my feet sank quickly down into the wet peat... and they kept on sinking – followed by my legs, and then my waist... I was disappearing into the bog!
I'd seen The Hound of the Baskervilles, so I knew how this might end. Horrified, I threw myself forward, supporting my weight on the surface of the bog. Luckily, I had fallen far enough across the pool that I could reach firm ground with strong heather clumps on the far side. I was just able to pull myself clear. Covered in horrid sticky black mud up to my waist, and deeply wounded in my dignity. But at least I was across the clough, and unhurt in any physical sense. And I now knew just what they meant by "gully blocking to retain water." (To avoid further embarrassment, I'm not going to describe how Angela got across in her turn... except to say this was the second time I'd led her into a peat bog with colourful results).
Analysis. The peat bogs in the Dark Peak provide a regulating service by sequestering carbon. By retaining water, sphagnum moss limits (regulates) the erosion of a fragile upland habitat. The plateau provisions the surrounding towns with water, and some species that live around the mountain are a food source for humans (grouse, pheasants, in earlier times also hares). The grassy slopes provide fodder for sheep, which we keep for wool (and eat some, too). And of course, there's also a wild food chain – should we count that as a provisioning service too? The peat acts as an efficient filter, cleaning the water supply for creatures that use it – is this a supporting service? The steep rocky slopes oxygenate the water, creating a suitable environment for invertebrates such as stonefly larvae, an important prey species in the ecosystem's food chain – another supporting service. Cultural services are woven all through my story above. This is a hugely important recreational area, and this in turn supports many local businesses.
There are many stakeholders, and, as you would expect, these are often in conflict with each other. Visitors like me go to enjoy the experience of landscape, big views, closeness to wild nature, seeing rare animals, extreme weather, physical challenge and more. Some locals make their living from visitors (pubs, bed and breakfasts, cafes, cycle hire, grouse-shooting, etc.). Our interests coincide around the protection of nature, but we may mean different things by that. Owners of grouse-shooting estates want to preserve one kind of landscape, sheep farmers another. Other locals (some farmers, villagers who commute to work in the nearby cities) may find visitors a nuisance.
British national parks, unlike those in many other countries, are not owned by government. Most of the land is privately owned by people who make their living from it, and the only real power the park has is through its control of planning permission for new developments. This means that often locals are in conflict with the park. The national park authority is supposed to mediate between other stakeholders, but it also has its own priorities. A local business may be keen to dig up a hillside and sell the stone for road building, or to strip the peat off the mountain and sell it as garden compost. The national park is unlikely to agree to either proposal. Its priorities are, in descending order: to preserve and protect the natural environment; to promote its enjoyment and appreciation by the public; to foster the well-being of the people who live in the park.
My humiliation in the peat bog represents a conflict between the first and second of those aims. My recerational enjoyment (cultural value) was trumped by the national park's conservation activities (regulation and supporting values). But maybe this is a bit too simplistic. Ease of access is only one element among many in the recreational use of nature. For some people, the harder a place is to access, the more value it has. And now that I know how this conservation scheme seeks to re-wild the summit of Kinder Scout, maybe that makes the place more attractive to me too.
One more question in this task: what do I get out of having Kinder Scout preserved, rather than replacing it with an artificial alternative? By way of answer, another anecdote. I used to go to a gym regularly; as part of my routine I would spend 30 minutes on a cycling machine. I took a book to read, propped up on the handlebars of the exercise bike, because the only alternative was to watch endless MTV videos on the gym TV. After a few months, I quit the gym. Why? Because I realised this was a poor substitute for riding a real bike through real countryside. I missed listening to bird song, seeing the crops in the fields and wildflowers in the verge as I rode past, feeling the wind on my face and in my hair (this was when I still had hair). I just can't imagine a satisfactory artifical alternative to a real outdoor mountain.
- Choose an example of an ecosystem that you personally benefit from... Why do you benefit...? What value do you get out of having it preserved, rather than replacing it with an artificial alternative?
- Then, consider who else might be placing value on your chosen ecosystem. Who are the key stakeholders and what do they get out of it? Which of the 4 types of service does the ecosystem provide (Regulating, Supporting, Provisioning or Cultural)?
Kinder Scout is a high plateau in the gritstone part of the South Pennines. In character, it is a roughly level area of heather moor and peat bogs, mostly above 600m of elevation, and surrounded by steep grass slopes and rocky outcrops eroded by many 'cloughs' - the local name for a steep tumbling stream. Many cloughs plunge into small areas of woodland, and some of this is quite ancient because the land is difficult to plant and harvest. The valleys below - 'dales' in the local dialect - are sparsely inhabited and mostly given to sheep farming because very little else will grow there. It's a very popular place to hike, partly because of the wild landscape, and partly because it is close to several major cities (Sheffield and Manchester in particular). It's also the start of the Pennine Way, perhaps the premier long distance trail in the UK.
It's an important natural resource in a number of ways. The moorland landscape and wooded slopes support a variety of specialist moor and bog plants, such as sphagnum moss, bilberry, heather, cottongrass and bog asphodel. It's also a haven for mountain hares, red grouse, short-eared owls and merlins. None of these are exactly common in England. According to the National Park website: "The Peak District supports 161 species that have been identified as priorities for the UK Biodiversity Action Plan because they are at risk of being lost from our countryside." Standing high above the surrounding plains of the English Midlands, the Dark Peak catches a lot of rain, much of which is caught in reservoirs to supply the water needs of surrounding cities. And, as we know from the climate science course, peat bogs sequester a lot of carbon, and thus act as a useful buffer against global warming.
My association with Kinder Scout. I've been hiking there for many years (there are photos from some recent trips here, here and here). Especially during the year after my first wife's death from cancer, I spent a lot of time walking its gritstone edges. On these solitary walks I also became much more familiar with the central plateau away from the edges. I wandered deep into the wilder parts by following the summit streams uphill and scrambling up over the heather and bilberry hillocks. When there was snow and the ground was frozen, I found you could literally walk anywhere. For hours at a time, you would see very few people, with only the tracks of mountain hares and red grouse for company (photos here). But at that time, the natural environment of the plateau was quite degraded and there were lots of places where the vegetation had almost all gone, leaving big areas of bare peat. I confess I didn't think much about the environmental aspects then. For a preoccupied walker, the degradation was convenient. It was easy and safe to wander freely across the plateau. When bare peat is wet (quite often!) it is horrible, sticky black stuff. But, as long as it's not too deep (in other words, no higher than your boots), it's fairly safe to walk over. In drier conditions, bare peat is quite firm and in summer it can dry out completely to a powder. Whether initially wet or dry, peat erodes very easily when it rains, unless there is something to block the flow of water off the hill. But regular erosion means the peat never becomes deep. Perfect for the walker! Even better, because most people who hike on Kinder Scout are not confident enough to leave the clear paths that follow the edges. So to venture into the heart of the mountain often means you can be completely alone. But my good fortune was not set to last...
A muddy awakening. Fast forward a couple of years, and I was back again - but not alone this time. With my new partner Angela. Like me, she had been widowed a couple of years earlier, and since we met we had been showing each other our favourite places. So naturally one weekend we hiked up Kinder Scout. "Follow me," I said, "I know this plateau like the back of my hand!" Hah! What hubris! They say pride goes before a fall, and I was about to have one...
On the Peak District National Park website, you can read about their Biodiversity Action Plan. This is designed to protect and restore moorland mountain habitats in places like Kinder Scout. One element of this is "re-vegetation of bare peat and gully blocking to retain water..." As Angela and I walked towards the centre of the plateau, I noticed large bags full of heather seedlings that had been dropped there by helicopter, ready for planting by conservation volunteers. Re-vegetation... hmm. I also noticed some summit cloughs had been dammed by stone walls almost 2 metres high. Unfortunately I didn't think about the consequences of that until a few minutes later, when I met them in a rather dramatic way. We walked on and came to an area of bare black peat, perhaps 2 metres across. The surface of the peat was smooth, wet and shiny, but I knew it would be only a few centimetres deep. I strode confidently across, as I had done so many times before. However, instead of crossing easily to the other side, my feet sank quickly down into the wet peat... and they kept on sinking – followed by my legs, and then my waist... I was disappearing into the bog!
I'd seen The Hound of the Baskervilles, so I knew how this might end. Horrified, I threw myself forward, supporting my weight on the surface of the bog. Luckily, I had fallen far enough across the pool that I could reach firm ground with strong heather clumps on the far side. I was just able to pull myself clear. Covered in horrid sticky black mud up to my waist, and deeply wounded in my dignity. But at least I was across the clough, and unhurt in any physical sense. And I now knew just what they meant by "gully blocking to retain water." (To avoid further embarrassment, I'm not going to describe how Angela got across in her turn... except to say this was the second time I'd led her into a peat bog with colourful results).
Analysis. The peat bogs in the Dark Peak provide a regulating service by sequestering carbon. By retaining water, sphagnum moss limits (regulates) the erosion of a fragile upland habitat. The plateau provisions the surrounding towns with water, and some species that live around the mountain are a food source for humans (grouse, pheasants, in earlier times also hares). The grassy slopes provide fodder for sheep, which we keep for wool (and eat some, too). And of course, there's also a wild food chain – should we count that as a provisioning service too? The peat acts as an efficient filter, cleaning the water supply for creatures that use it – is this a supporting service? The steep rocky slopes oxygenate the water, creating a suitable environment for invertebrates such as stonefly larvae, an important prey species in the ecosystem's food chain – another supporting service. Cultural services are woven all through my story above. This is a hugely important recreational area, and this in turn supports many local businesses.
There are many stakeholders, and, as you would expect, these are often in conflict with each other. Visitors like me go to enjoy the experience of landscape, big views, closeness to wild nature, seeing rare animals, extreme weather, physical challenge and more. Some locals make their living from visitors (pubs, bed and breakfasts, cafes, cycle hire, grouse-shooting, etc.). Our interests coincide around the protection of nature, but we may mean different things by that. Owners of grouse-shooting estates want to preserve one kind of landscape, sheep farmers another. Other locals (some farmers, villagers who commute to work in the nearby cities) may find visitors a nuisance.
British national parks, unlike those in many other countries, are not owned by government. Most of the land is privately owned by people who make their living from it, and the only real power the park has is through its control of planning permission for new developments. This means that often locals are in conflict with the park. The national park authority is supposed to mediate between other stakeholders, but it also has its own priorities. A local business may be keen to dig up a hillside and sell the stone for road building, or to strip the peat off the mountain and sell it as garden compost. The national park is unlikely to agree to either proposal. Its priorities are, in descending order: to preserve and protect the natural environment; to promote its enjoyment and appreciation by the public; to foster the well-being of the people who live in the park.
My humiliation in the peat bog represents a conflict between the first and second of those aims. My recerational enjoyment (cultural value) was trumped by the national park's conservation activities (regulation and supporting values). But maybe this is a bit too simplistic. Ease of access is only one element among many in the recreational use of nature. For some people, the harder a place is to access, the more value it has. And now that I know how this conservation scheme seeks to re-wild the summit of Kinder Scout, maybe that makes the place more attractive to me too.
One more question in this task: what do I get out of having Kinder Scout preserved, rather than replacing it with an artificial alternative? By way of answer, another anecdote. I used to go to a gym regularly; as part of my routine I would spend 30 minutes on a cycling machine. I took a book to read, propped up on the handlebars of the exercise bike, because the only alternative was to watch endless MTV videos on the gym TV. After a few months, I quit the gym. Why? Because I realised this was a poor substitute for riding a real bike through real countryside. I missed listening to bird song, seeing the crops in the fields and wildflowers in the verge as I rode past, feeling the wind on my face and in my hair (this was when I still had hair). I just can't imagine a satisfactory artifical alternative to a real outdoor mountain.
posted by Macro @ April 04, 2018
1 Comments
1 Comments:
A good contact is that the wheel modifications course with each spin, simply as a French-trained croupier 온라인 카지노 would handle the table. Fun, AWESOME Bonuses and Responsible Gaming are phrases we reside by. Online Casino and Betting is an leisure type that is loopy enjoyable when enjoyed underneath the best conditions. Every casino’s event will be structured in a different way|in another way} and have completely different guidelines, so positive you|ensure you|be positive to} are acquainted with them before speeding in.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home