Heather Trust seeks £220,000 for four-year heather beetle research

The Heather Trust has launched a £220,000 fundraising drive for a four-year research programme into heather beetle, the moorland insect whose outbreaks can devastate huge tracts of heather. The appeal, announced in the Trust’s October newsletter on Wednesday, 4 November, is run with research partners at the James Hutton Institute.

Why does heather beetle need a research programme?

Heather beetle (Lochmaea suturalis) is widespread in the UK and can cause extensive damage to heather during outbreaks, with effects the Trust describes as devastating for huge tracts of precious heather moorland. Yet the evidence base needed to understand the scale, causes and consequences of those outbreaks remains limited, leaving moor managers without reliable guidance on why they strike where they do or how to respond.

What will the £220,000 fund?

The four-year project will bring together laboratory science, historic datasets, field observations, citizen science and practical land management to establish the evidence needed to understand the beetle and develop practical, sustainable approaches to managing its impacts. The James Hutton Institute brings the laboratory and data science: the Aberdeen and Dundee-based institute works on crops, soils and land use across Scotland and beyond.

The Trust says the work will help answer long-standing questions about the beetle, and the citizen-science and field-observation strands offer the keepers and moor owners who find the damage first a direct way into the research. Anyone able to contribute towards the target is asked to contact the Trust’s director, Katrina Candy, through the Trust’s website.

A survey for those who do the predator control

The same newsletter carries a second call to the uplands: Working for Waders, in partnership with the Trust, has opened a survey of those who practise, or take an interest in, predator management for waders, to uncover who is doing the work, what they do and why, and what is really producing results on the ground. Responses are open until Monday, 16 November, and the findings will inform future studies and support those tackling wader declines across Scotland.

What happens next

Fundraising for the beetle programme is open now, and the research will run for four years as the £220,000 target is met. The Trust’s November is already full: it delivers the Wildfire2026 conference at Headingley in Leeds on 10 and 11 November, and its Annual Review 2026 will publish digitally on its website later in the year. The full newsletter, with the beetle appeal and the survey link, is on the Heather Trust website.