| Tayside Biodiversity - Tayside
Biodiversity Action Plan - Upland -
Montane (habitats above the treeline) |
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CASE STUDY
The 420 ha. of Dun Coillich, wonderfully described as an unremarkable hill next
to
a remarkable hill (Schiehallion), is Perthshire’s first attempt at a community
led land buy-out.
A charitable trust, the Highland Perthshire Communities Land Trust, was set up
to purchase the hill in May 2002 and to engage the wider community in preparing
a management plan for the property. Public meetings and community consultation
have taken place and there is a growing members list. Few funds remain, however,
as the purchase price was raised through local contributions - so all future
projects on the site must be self-funded. |
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Several sub-groups
are taking forward specific areas of work. Finance, education,
site management, membership and publicity will all be covered,
and there is a survey group. One of the Trust’s first
tasks is to provide a safe parking area, albeit temporary for
the time being, so that people can enjoy the hill.
Equally important is the task to find out not just what is there now, but what
was there in the past. So Dun Coillich’s flora and fauna, archaeology and
history, as well as its stories and tales, will all be studied and recorded.
The community can then plan for the future so that those who come afterwards
can measure theeffects of what has been done.
Dun Coillich already has a large native pinewood regeneration scheme in place,
so vegetation and landscape surveys have been done. Forest Enterprise have also
agreed to delay work planned under the Woodland Grant Scheme (WGS) so that the
community can carry out base-line surveying to find out what is there first.
Their findings will direct the site’s future management and the design
of the WGS.
These are exciting times for “an unremarkable hill”. The uniqueness
of involving the community in the whole process of land restoration shows that
every single individual can play their part in local biodiversity conservation. |
NATURE
CONSERVATION IMPORTANCE
Montane areas are made up of many types of habitat and support a wide range of
plant and animal communities. Less disturbed areas are characterised by a range
of near-natural or semi-natural plant communities. These include internationally
significant species such as oceanic and southern outliers of arctic-alpine assemblages.
Other globally threatened habitats can also be found such as near-natural dwarf-shrub
heaths, moss-heath and grasslands. Late-lying snow patches have characteristic
bryophyte and lichen communities, while spring flushes, freshwater seepage areas,
screes, rock crevices and outcrops provide a range of microhabitats which support
specialised plants and animals, including arctic-alpine willows, tall herb communities
and other relict arctic-alpine species. This grouping of habitats has a high
diversity of plant and animal species. Of particular importance are the relict
arctic-alpine species, lower plants and invertebrates, together with important
concentrations of endemic species.
The montane communities in Perthshire and Angus are particularly species-rich
as a result of the diversity of the underlying geology and the effects of a relatively
continental climate which leads to some of the largest areas of snow-lie in Britain.
They support a remarkable range of rare and scarce flowering plants, mosses,
liverworts, lichens and invertebrates as well as sub-arctic and alpine breeding
bird populations. Caenlochan and Ben Lawers support as large a range of nationally
rare and montane vascular plants as any other British upland site. A number of
European montane
habitats are also particularly well represented in Tayside such as alpine calcareous
grassland, montane willow scrub, tall herb communities, high altitude flushes,
and plant communities of base-rich scree and rock crevices.
KEY SITES Four SSSIs in Tayside have been notified for their important montane
habitats and are candidate SACs for their international importance:
NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY CONTEXT
There is a UK Habitat Statement for the Montane habitat. This gives the following
conservation direction to Local Biodiversity Action Plans which may adopt some
or all of the relevant measures identified nationally:
“
Minimise further deterioration to the resource near-natural montane
and high altitude moorland; restore areas of scrub, herb and moss cover
and minimise damage and disturbance.”
Measures identified on a UK wide basis to consider further include:
Carry out surveys to identify remnant areas of near-natural montane communities.
Reduce grazing pressure from deer.
Encourage lower levels of sheep grazing and burning management to maintain
montane vegetation.
Protect montane areas from inappropriate development and discourage disturbance
and damage to montane areas from inappropriate forms and levels of use, including
recreational uses.
Consider the need for studies to investigate the effects of acid deposition.
Since the production of this guidance, it has been suggested that the impacts
of nitrogen deposition on montane
communities may become very important in the future.
ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
Surveys on designated sites show that the condition of some montane habitats
is deteriorating as a result of grazing and trampling impacts by both deer and
sheep. Vegetation communities such as tall herbs and mountain willow scrub are
largely restricted to steep and rocky areas which are inaccessible to grazing
animals. Some of the more palatable components of other communities such as Heather
Calluna vulgaris are also becoming suppressed and restricted over large areas
as a result of too much grazing pressure. These are being replaced by less palatable,
more grazing-tolerant Vaccinium species such as Cowberry and Blaeberry and Mat
grass Nardus stricta.
Several of the rare plant populations are known to be hanging on in dangerously
low numbers. Suitable re-introduction sites have been found for some species,
including Alpine sowthistle Cicerbita alpina. Others, including the Alpine catchfly
Lychnis alpina, have good-sized stable populations.
Golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos and Dotterel Charadrius morinellus (both Annex
1 species in the EC Birds Directive) are well recorded and appear to be reasonably
stable in numbers. Golden plover Pluvialis apricaria are less well recorded. |
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Golden Eagle
Britain has an international responsibility to protect its
population of Golden eagles.
Scotland has 420 pairs of these magnificent raptors.
They are long-lived birds, not beginning to breed until five
years old and then only rearing one young per year.
Each pair has a home range of anything between 3,250 ha.
and 7,300 ha. over which they hunt. Much of the eagle’s
food is carrion, although it will feed on mammals and birds. |
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CURRENT FACTORS CAUSING
LOSS OR DECLINE
Poor soils and extreme climate conditions make montane areas
unsuitable for forestry or intensive agriculture. However,
the shallow soils, restricted growing season and the fragmented
distribution of the more vulnerable habitats and species
render montane areas especially vulnerable to the following
impacts:
Overgrazing by Deer and Sheep
The red deer population has almost doubled in the last forty
years and it has been estimated that the Scottish population
is in the region of 300,000. Parts of Tayside have some of
the highest deer concentrations of anywhere in Scotland – winter
densities have been recorded in the Cairngorms as high as
150 per km2. This is despite concerted efforts by some estates
to reduce numbers.
Sheep concentrations have also been traditionally high in
hillfarm areas as a result of headage payment agricultural
incentives. Although the incentive system has now changed,
the legacy of high grazing levels of both deer and sheep
over several decades has left montane habitats such as dwarf
shrub heath, willow scrub, herb-rich vegetation and moss-heath
fragmented and in a seriously degraded state. Grazing-tolerant
species such as Mat grass and Blaeberry have taken over as
the major components in large areas of montane habitat. This
has also reduced the grazing value of the area for these
animals.
Trampling damage is also becoming a serious threat to some
habitats such as blanket bog, plants of high altitude water
seepage areas and sub-alpine calcareous grassland (all of
which are Annex 1 habitats in the EC Habitats Directive).
This has shown a sharp increase in recent years in parts
of Tayside as a result of increasingly large herds of deer
becoming ever more mobile, possibly due to increased stalking
pressure and restriction of deer range. Hill vehicles used
for sheep and deer management, unless used carefully, can
cause localised damage to wet areas and
peaty areas.
Increased erosion in the form of slumping of soil and vegetation
from steep slopes, as well as an increase in peat hags and
bare ground are all visible in some areas. Trampling of ground-nesting
bird nests and chicks by sheep and deer is also a potential
problem. In some cases, trampling of Dotterel nests can reach
25% of all nests in some years at sites with high deer numbers;
sheep can also destroy similar proportions of nests when
they reach high density such as those observed at some sites
in Tayside. |
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