Tuesday 19 May 2015

Land Use Strategy Annual Stakeholder Event – 11 June 2015

You are invited to attend this year’s annual Land Use Strategy stakeholder event on 11 June at SNH Battleby, Perth.  Please register early as places are limited.

The event will focus on the recently concluded Land Use Strategy Regional Pilot projects in Aberdeenshire and Scottish Borders. 

Registration for the event is on Eventbrite – please follow the link here

Please note that this is a half day event from 10 am – 2:30.

Tea and coffee will be served from 10 – 10:30 and lunch will be provided. If you have any special requirements please let me know.

I look forward to seeing you at the event.

Best regardS

Linda
Linda Gateley
Scottish Government, Land Use & Biodiversity Team, Directorate for Environment and Forestry,
1C North, Victoria Quay, EH6 6QQ             0131 244 7968              website: Land Use Strategy

Thursday 14 May 2015

Molinia Conference, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire: 14-16 September 2015

Molinia on Marsden Moor
Although Huddersfield may be a distance from Scotland, this conference will be applicable to everyone who wants to know more about Molinia across the UK.  I will be attending in my Heather Trust capacity, but I circulate details in case some Forum members would also like to attend, or at least be aware of it.

The full title of this conference is: "Molinia caerulea on upland peat in the UK: history, dependencies and the role of intervention in achieving conservation goals".

From the flyer for the conference:
"Peat covers much of the flat or gently sloping uplands of the UK, forming blanket mire that can host a number of vegetation types. The type favoured by conservationists, and considered to be associated with the greatest rate of peat formation, involves cotton-grass (Eriophorum) species, ericaceous shrubs and Sphagnum mosses. In practice, this is lacking over large areas of upland where it might be expected, its place being taken by very dominant Purple moor-grass Molinia caerulea. Conservation bodies expend much effort in trying to replace Molinia with the more desirable species and conservation objectives are set with this in mind. This conference examines the place of Molinia caerulea in UK plant communities, factors affecting its growth and experiments looking at ways of adding greater diversity where appropriate. The aim is to gain a clearer understanding, through discussion, of what types of conservation objective should be applied and how to achieve them.

The conference will take place in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, 14-16 September 2015 and will contain two days of presentations and discussion followed by a field trip on Day 3 to look at diversification experiments set up in dominant Molinia on the Marsden Moor Estate. We are able to keep the conference fee low due to generous support from Natural England and the International Peat Society."


I can vouch for Marsden Moor being a good venue for the field visit.  The Heather Trust ran a demonstration project for Defra at Marsden for three years from 2003, and I remember walking over the part of the moor shown in the photograph.  At the time, it had a complete coverage of molinia tussocks and it was hard walking.  I suspect it has not changed a lot since.



For more detail about the conference see the Marsden Moor Estate website.