SPATES, MUD, SILT & BADLY MANAGED TRIBUTARIES If there is a man-induced problem in the South Esk catchment it is almost certainly caused by agriculture, and nowhere is that more of an issue than in the catchment of the Lemno Burn. THE LEMNO BURN (again) The Lemno Burn is a mid South Esk tributary of considerable importance. It never dries up completely, but during dry summers over the last 30 years has suffered badly from irrigation abstraction, at times reducing its flow to a trickle. In higher rainfall periods during the ploughing and cropping seasons, as well as in the dusty drought periods of the April and May sowing season, wind and water erosion brings large quantities of topsoil into the burn. SILT ASPHYXIATES The problem with silt is that it clogs gravels and kills all manner of living organisms that depends on the flow of water in above, within and below the gravels. That supply of oxygen and nutrients flowing between the small stones of the river bed ensures that invertebrates, small fish, including salmon and sea trout, freshwater mussels and aquatic plants are healthy. Silt effectively removes that healthy flow of the river, with its slower currents caused by the friction of the river bed, and with it the biodiversity of the whole river is damaged. DIRTY DITCH OR A NATURAL BURN: WHICH IS IT TO BE ? That is why, when the Lemno Burn flows heavy with mud and silt, as it has over the last ten days, I find myself questioning the motivation of some farmers to modernise their practices and start thinking about managing our river catchment as an ecosystem on which all living things within the catchment, including the land that is farmed, depend. I suppose my biggest frustration lies in the obsession with draining the land to ensure maximum yield on a regular, financial accountancy-led attitude to farming our land. OUR RESPONSIBILITY And yet, despite these depredations, the Lemno Burn is in places full of life. In places it has very little, but what these variations in fecundity reveal is the natural resilience of a water course in a notably fertile area. Think what it could produce - the range of diversity, the richness of its flora and fauna, if we looked after it better! LETS MODERNISE ! That approach to farming is out of date, and flies in the face of efforts to manage our land and its water courses ecologically. I note that Germany boasts that 40% of its land is forested, and France, while not so well endowed with trees, is way ahead of Scotland. Surely we can find ways of improving our relationship with our land, taking our living from it wisely and avoiding treating it as an industrial age milch cow? In my view we are not a grown-up country until we do. ONE GRUMPY OLD MAN ! Ive got that one off my chest - until the next time theres a flood in the Lemno Burn! The Lemno Burn is of course my hobby horse! TA
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 09:02:52 +0000
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