Continuing our Contested Landscape series, Martin Hesp has been to visit a much maligned, rare and precious environment

A WILDLIFE expert rummages through the undergrowth in what looks like a corner of some untampered-with, ancient, long-lost bit of England – and he leaps with delight as he finds a rare butterfly egg half the size of a match-head.

A few minutes later we are in a very different landscape. It looks like a Somme battlefield, circa 1916. Trees and branches lie torn asunder – an entire woodland has been reduced to a sea of mud so deep, we give up slipping and sliding across it after just a few metres.

You might think – given the title of this series – that the two places make up two opposing sides of a truly contested landscape. In fact, they both tell the same story. It is a very good story as far as anyone who drinks tap water is concerned – which means just about all of us.

A good story in many other ways too – but we'll get on to those later. First, allow me to introduce you to culm.

"To what?" I hear half the readers ask. Culm is a word that describes a particular kind of geological area, and a very rare one, at that. Devon and North East Cornwall play host to no less than 80 per cent of the planet's culm lands, which gives them a kind of celebrity rarity value if nothing else.

Apart from rarity, culm has very little going for it. Or so most people have thought for the past 100 years. The shillets and shales capped by inhospitable clays have been regarded by agricultural improvers as being not much good for neither man nor beast.

The only thing to do was to plough the hell out of the culm areas and lace as much as you could with artificial fertiliser, or plant conifer forests – or do just about anything radical that you could dream up – as long as you did not allow culm to carry on just being culm.

Which is why this rare geological area underwent a massive decline during the last century. More than 90 per cent of it disappeared at the hands of the improvers, leaving us with only 4,500 hectares.

But guess what? Suddenly culm is good. We might not love culm, but we need it. Scrubby, scruffy, culm might not be everyone's favourite landscape – it will never overtake the high heather moors or the coastal heaths in sightseer popularity – but it does good and sterling work out there on the big windswept hills which rise towards the salt winds of the West coast.

So much good work that the Devon Wildlife Trust is in the middle of a massive, five-year, multi-million-pound project called Working Wetlands, aimed at restoring some culm areas to their former natural glory.

The official headline is: "Working Wetlands aims to restore robust terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that are able to function in a more naturalistic manner having greater resilience to our changing climate."

The farmers of 60 years ago would probably turn in their graves – and a few agriculturalists today would understand why. They'd be joined by climate-change deniers and by the sort of folk who spit feathers whenever they hear money is being spent on saving half a dozen rare butterflies, a few frogs or a small shoal of hopeless fish.

First let me get one thing straight on behalf of the people running the project – it is not about criticising farmers, nor is it about protecting one rare natural environment for the sake of a few insects or plants.

Environmental gainsayers would probably temper their displeasure over such schemes if they were asked to drink a glass of untreated Roadford Reservoir water. Roadford, as anyone who reads this newspaper will know, has occasional problems such as its very own algal blooms. Basically, the reservoir's water requires filtering before it is fit for human consumption. At huge expense.

Roadford is situated in the heart of the North East Tamar catchment area, which includes one of the biggest blocks of ex-culm land. Problems like algal blooms can occur because nitrates, phosphates and other nutrients are added to the thin soils in the hills.

Not that this statement should be seen as farmer-knocking. Top of the project's list of intentions is to "influence the socio-economic factors that underpin the traditional agricultural sector", which, in layman's language, means working with farmers rather than against them.

The project aims to "provide a grazing links service that will help reduce the impact of the continued reduction in the number of holdings with cattle – and facilitate the development of machinery sharing rings and labour/knowledge exchange networks".

The Western Morning News was taken on a tour of some of the key culm sites by Working Wetland's project manager, Peter Burgess, who is one of the world's great enthusiasts when it comes to this rare type of natural environment. Consequently, Peter seemed rather apologetic when we arrived at the first site – the aforementioned Devon version of a Somme battleground.

"Don't worry," he said as we looked out across 20 hectares of landscape carnage at a place called Lutworthy Moor, near Rackenford, near Tiverton. "This will all make sense in a few months time – it won't take that long to return this site to genuine culm grassland."

What we were looking at was the remains of a clear-felled forest. The trunks of the conifers were piled in neat heaps awaiting transportation to the sawmills – and the stumps and roots were awaiting the arrival of a massive mulching machine that will clear the ground.

"We know that prior to planting in the 1950s these areas were rough culm grassland habitats because we have aerial photos taken by the RAF in 1947," Peter told me.

"We have worked alongside the landowner to realise the timber value and drawn down funds from Natural England through the Higher Level Stewardship scheme to recreate wildlife-rich habitats.

"The next phase, after felling, is for the stumps to be mulched in situ and the land fenced, water supply brought on to site, hedges protected and replanted where necessary in readiness for grazing by beef cattle.

"We know from past experience that the seed bank in culm habitats is very long lived and regeneration can be very fast, grazing will be required within the first season."

At this point it is worth saying Culm grasslands were never regarded as totally useless from an agricultural perspective. Old fashioned extensive grazing with indigenous breeds such as the Red Devon is perfectly feasible – some would say desirable – on such diverse, herb rich, pasture. What is not so practicable is modern day "intensive" farming – hence all those fertilisers.

"The local character of the landscape has resulted from hundreds if not thousands of years of traditional farming practice," said Peter as we inspected another area being targeted by the project. This time we were in open fields at Affeton Moor, owned by Sir Hugh Stucley, who is working with the project in some areas of his land.

Here Peter's team is encouraging a more natural form of culm grassland to develop after the area was covered in fresh-cut green hay taken from a more traditional site.

The idea is that the seeds carried in the fresh hay will sprout and flourish, thereby introducing a more complex range of grasses and other plants quickly, rather than slowly.

From the wide open fields at Affeton Moor you can see how the entire landscape descends into numerous small coombes containing streams and rivers.

"As with all our semi-natural habitats, long-term good environmental condition is crucial for nothing less than our long-term survival on this planet," mused Peter. "Extensive areas of culm grasslands within a mosaic of other important habitats such as woodland, scrub, other semi-natural grasslands, hedges, and high quality watercourses are essential for the services they provide to us.

"One of the most important is their role in helping to ensure a clean water supply – they act as filters and buffers against pollutants arising from modern agricultural practice."

He had something else to say about the water flowing from culm land: "Alleviation of the peaks and troughs of river flows is very important – culm acts as a sponge soaking up water in periods of high rainfall and slowly releasing it during periods of drought.

"Drought is one of the major threats to our aquatic habitats – any pollutants such as nitrates and phosphates are concentrated in the water during periods of drought, this can lead to fish kills as oxygen is depleted. Floods ruin properties and livelihoods of those living downstream."

Of course, there is no way all of Devon and Cornwall's ex-culm lands can be renovated. Peter showed us a map so we could see how his team are concentrating on working with landowners in some vital areas in an attempt to create a series of natural culm "oases" dotted here and there across the landscape.

"We are focusing our effort in three priority areas [totalling 60,000 hectares] within the Culm Natural Area [which totals 280,000 hectares]," he explained.

"These have been identified due to the catchments that rise in these areas [the Taw, Torridge and Tamar] and also the cluster of wildlife-rich habitats including culm grasslands that are found."

It's hoped that natural species will be encouraged to "join up the dots" – so to speak – by building bridges across the newly refurbished areas of culm land.

Lastly Peter took us to an area he claimed was probably about as genuine and ancient as modern culm sites get. In the valley just below Affeton Moor there is a scrubby, half wooded area which reminded me of the drawings that illustrated the Winnie the Pooh books. Occasional grazing has left a fascinating mix of woodland – both old and new – intermixed with open areas of low scrub and coarse grasses and sedges.

"Here's the egg of a rare brown hairstreak," cried Peter – although how he found the tiny thing I shall never know.

"Are they really rare?" we ask.

"The actual butterflies are difficult to spot because of their lifestyle," he replied. "But, put it this way – although I know where and how to find the eggs, I have only ever seen one brown hairstreak."

Maybe, if his project is a success, he'll get to see a few more. And we humble drinkers of tap water might just see a slight reduction in our bills.