CONSERVATION at LANGHOLM

The Langholm Moor Demonstration Project will focus on the management of a substantial red grouse moor on Buccleuch Estates in Dumfriesshire.  The moor includes around 7,000 hectares protected under European legislation due to its international importance for the hen harrier.

The project has been established by a unique partnership with the Buccleuch Group, Scottish Natural Heritage, The Game Conservancy Trust, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Natural England.

With an investment of more than £3m over a ten-year period, the project will employ eight people.  It aims to integrate the management of the moor for grouse, biodiversity and other land use interests.  More than half of the funding for the project comes from grouse moor interests, including The Buccleuch Group.

The project will seek to demonstrate whether the needs of an economically viable grouse moor can be met alongside the conservation needs of protected raptors, especially the hen harrier.

Professor Colin Galbraith of SNH, who chairs the project partnership, said: “We have formed a unique partnership to help solve a unique problem.  The coming years will see the partner organisations work together to manage Langholm Moor in ways which, we hope,  will allow grouse to be harvested, while ensuring that the hen harriers and other wildlife flourish.”

The management of Langholm Moor has been one of the most keenly debated conservation issues in the country in recent years.  People from a number of key conservation and land management organisations have worked together to find the middle ground and to develop a viable way forward.  The partnership now in place includes considerable experience and expertise in land and conservation management, and in scientific monitoring.

The overall aim of the project is to establish Langholm Moor as an economically viable grouse moor which also meets the site’s nature conservation objectives.  It seeks to extend and improve the condition of heather-dominated habitat through heather burning, bracken control and appropriate stock management to encourage heather recovery.

There will be legal predator control of foxes, crows, stoats and weasels, and diversionary feeding of nesting hen harriers, as well as habitat creation for hen harriers and other moorland breeding birds.

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