The Achmelvich Machair
As a follow-up to surveys of the Achmelvich area late last year (see Achmelvich: rediscovering a local landscape, parts 1 and 2), we asked Bill Ritchie if he had any information on the restoration of this area in the 1980s. He has kindly provided a copy of this video presentation made in 2012 (The Achmelvich machair. Erosion and Recovery), together with the following notes. [NB It seems the presentation will only play the first minute and 46 seconds on Windows devices then it freezes. If you find this happening to you then we would suggest trying to view it on any non-Windows device. We have been able to play it on Apple and Kindle devices as well as various mobile phones.]
1. There were no remnants of marram or lyme-grass on the site before the planting in 1983.
2. The marram was collected from Embo and planted by a few crofters under the Job Creation Scheme. [That Wikipedia link has been added to the original words for reference only]. Most of the planting was done along the seaward edge of the machair, but some was planted to deliberately to seal off the more serious encroachments by the sea (see the presentation) and thereby reduce the area of sand to build your sandcastles on.
3. We were unaware of any lyme-grass mixed with the marram at the time of planting, but it has since become established. It seems likely that fragments of lyme-grass were imported with the marram. As it behaves differently from the marram, in that it happily spreads seaward, this has reduced the area of the beach a little, especially at the south end.
4. The first two winters after the planting were extremely stormy, causing massive amounts of sand to be blown over the planted areas, blocking the access to the crofts and to the car park (see the presentation).
5. There are major differences between the grazing regime on the machair and that on the croft land to the east of the ‘small’ beach and the common grazings to the east of the ‘big’ beach.
The croft land north of the second gate
There has been no grazing by sheep for several decades except on Ray Mackay’s croft. For most of that time the crofts have been grazed by horses late autumn to early spring only, with no grazing from the beginning of May to the beginning of October. This has led to a very vibrant, diverse and prolific flora.
The machair
Since the early 1970s, the machair has been grazed by sheep from late autumn to early spring. In the summer months it is trampled by a great many more tourists than in previous decades. Anecdotally, Agnes Dickson and I think this has led to a diminished biodiversity of flora. Though the display of cnapan-dubh (common knapweed) in the autumn is pretty impressive, it certainly cannot compare with the area north of the second gate grazed by horses. Have there been surveys of the flora over time on the machair? [Not so far as I know. IME]
The common grazing to the east, between the two gates, is grazed only by sheep all year round. This has reduced its apparent botanical interest, but it does harbour some species not found anywhere else in the area.
These differences in grazing regime appear to have a noticeable impact on the evolution of the flora in each area.
Bill Ritchie
Since we published this article, a local resident, Michael Rochester, got in touch to send us the photograph of the Achmelvich machair which was used in a 1953 copy of the ‘Northern Highlands Guide’ booklet published by the Scottish YHA. A very different view to today’s!
He also told us that several years ago the Youth Hostel warden made some golf clubs available to those staying, so that they might go and hack balls about on the machair. We can only wonder at the damage this would have caused to the fragile ecosystem. Happily, the powers-that-be in SYHA HQ decided that this was not a great idea, and ordered that the practice cease.
CADL