I’m Jenny, East Lammermuir Catchment Development Officer with Sustaining Dunbar. Over recent months I’ve been travelling around East Lammermuir, meeting landowners and talking about our local burns and rivers — how they have changed over time, the wildlife they support and what we might do to help them recover.
One comment I’ve heard captures a feeling shared by many people:
“Isn’t it amazing what happens when you leave nature alone? Look how it bounces back.”
There is a lot of truth in that. Sometimes giving nature space and leaving it undisturbed can be exactly what is needed. But for some of East Lammermuir’s burns, the story is more complicated.
Over many years, burns have been straightened, rerouted, constrained, dammed or even buried to meet changing needs for the land. That means simply leaving them alone today will not necessarily bring back the healthy, wildlife-rich watercourses that would once have existed.
In some places, a little help may be needed.
That can mean giving burns more room to move and meander, reconnecting them with surrounding wet ground and allowing water to spread more naturally through the landscape. Done in the right places, this can create better habitats for wildlife, help soils retain water and contribute to the long-term resilience of farmland.
We don’t have the great river systems found elsewhere in Scotland, but East Lammermuir’s smaller burns work on many of the same natural principles. Because they are small, the effects of what happens around them can also be particularly noticeable.
The aim isn’t to intervene everywhere. Quite the opposite: we want to reach the point where we really can look at a burn and say:
“It’s doing its thing. It’s fine the way it is.”
Understanding where nature can recover by itself — and where it might need some help — is an important part of looking after East Lammermuir’s landscape for the future.
This work forms part of Summit to Sea, a programme working across East Lammermuir to reconnect and restore habitats from the Lammermuir Hills to the coast. It also contributes to the Biodiversity Ambition identified in the East Lammermuir Local Place Plan.
Jenny
East Lammermuir Catchment Development Officer
Sustaining Dunbar