When I started this project, I requested permission from East Dunbartonshire Council, who own and manage the site. I took the opportunity of an online meeting with Jackie Gillespie, the officer responsible for the conservation and maintenance of Lenzie Moss. This work incudes monitoring species and collecting data on the environment, employing contractors, as well as managing a ranger, and coordinating many civic and corporate volunteers. This network conserves the peatlands and prevents the woodland from taking over the bog. It is probably fair to say that nobody knows the Moss like Jackie does. Over the course of an hour, I learnt about ‘unimproved’ grasslands, hydrological surveys, peat core sampling, butterfly and dragonfly conservation, fen vegetation, missing skylark, water vole habitats, and much, much more. My head was buzzing with information and my notebook covered in frantic scribbles. I was delighted, then, when Jackie offered to join me for a walk.
It is starting to rain when we meet in the small car park at Heather Drive, on the far side of the Moss from my home. This is the place where the beechwood meets the boardwalk. Jackie shows me ragged robin and common valerian, both of which have been planted by local school children and are now thriving. She tells me that during World War II, valerian tea was taken for its calming effect, during a time of air raids. On this walk, I will learn a lot from Jackie’s incredible cultural, botanical and historical knowledge about the flora and fauna of this place. It is immediately clear that I will be guided on this journey, and I am more than happy to listen, learn and follow, but there are also some questions that I would like to ask.
I am keen to find out more about the tensions that are being revealed, between the different users and uses of the site. During our call, Jackie had mentioned an article in the Kirkintilloch Herald that had referred to the tree management works as the ‘great chainsaw massacre’, criticising her personally for the council’s approach. It seems that over the years, she has been on the receiving end of some fairly vitriolic complaints. A lot of time and energy has gone into talks, responses, explanations, events – a great effort to communicate the reasons and present the evidence. Unfortunately, a small number of local residents have been unwilling to engage and have persistently demanded their ‘right to roam’ wherever they wish. But Scottish law only supports the right to responsible access. The damage that is being done to the bog by repeated footfall is evident at every turn. It is clear that the conflict has taken its toll at times – Jackie admits that she doesn’t have the same energy for it all anymore – but her commitment to restoring and protecting the Moss is impressive, and she remains dedicated to this work in the few years that are left before her retirement. I ask what kind of relationship she might have with this place after the job has been handed over to somebody else, and she says that it would be difficult to dissociate. This is way more than a job for Jackie: it is a deep and enduring love of place.
My assumption that my 100 walks round Lenzie Moss would each follow the same route is soon abandoned. Jackie leads me off the main path at the bottom of the boardwalk and we head into the bog. I learn about the process of rewetting, which began with a nine-tonne digger carefully brought in over ‘bog mats’ to infill the channels used for peat extraction. The living layer was removed for this work and then replaced on a reprofiled landscape. Traversing the site, I see the lines of bog heather (preferable to the dry-soil-loving ling heather that is prominent in other places here), which betray the patterns of the peat industry. The grid-like topography persists.
Another major part of the work here is the complex process of holding back and redirecting water across the site. Damming in this marshy ground is not an easy process, and the barriers are unsubstantial constructions of corrugated metal and wooden planks. The latter give the impression of bridges and may not help in the efforts to discourage people from making paths across the bog. As if to test their effectiveness, the rain falls heavier now. My old hiking boots and Jackie’s walking trainers do not stand a chance, and we get wetter and wetter. We keep checking in with each other that we are happy to push on through the elements. Both of us are. It strikes me that Jackie’s job is often about anticipating and directing different movements through and across the site. Jackie is a Flow Manager, of water and of people.
And then the weather and the scale shift, and we are close to the ground examining sundews – hopeful signs of the successful regeneration of the site. These plants are insectivorous, and Jackie points out their spiky tentacles, which have a dew-like sticky gland at the tip to trap their prey, before they enclose and digest it. We watch male meadow pipits ‘parachuting’ as a skilful mating display. Jackie is convinced she has heard a grasshopper warbler – a rare visitor to this site and an exciting return. We are sensing life in every direction. What a wonderful thing: to know this place at all scales, in all depths, and in all its bio-complexity.
I ask about a deep pool cut into the bog, and I learn that it serves a dual purpose: as a habitat for dragonflies and amphibians; and as an impassable barrier for walkers. But there are signs of meandering paths around the ponds and across the exposed and damaged peat layer – deep footprints and holes excavated by dogs. I realise that the work of the managers and educators and rangers employed by the council is never ending. Jackie stresses the precarity of this environment. Without these interventions, homes would flood, the bog would dry out, trees would move in, meadow pipets and sundew and grasshopper warblers would disappear, and all this life – all this wonder – would fade. I think that Jackie knows that despite the complaints and the negative media, her work is validated by this place, and even as the local community relate to the conservation practices in a variety of ways – including occasional hostility – so many people enjoy and appreciate the Moss and benefit from it in all sorts of ways. As Jackie looks out over the changing landscape, she expresses a combined sense of weariness and pride.
After this walk, I reflect on the different levels of knowledge that people have about the Moss. Many – Nalini, certainly Ruairidh, myself until relatively recently – have little to no knowledge about peatlands and their importance and fragility. The community who use this site rely on those who know and understand a unique environment and have the power to make decisions about how it is managed. But sometimes those projects and practices directly impact the way we want to walk, play, and study, and we can feel disempowered. This is a problem that I suspect cannot simply be solved by the community acquiring more knowledge. Perhaps more creative, alternative – maybe even provocative and disruptive – modes are required to tell these stories and raise these questions. I am also sure that there is huge potential and lasting value in the experience of walking and talking: inviting different types of conversation about the Moss; spending time with the birds and the weather, encouraging shared experiences here.
