Currently cutting a dashing figure on the moors above Huddersfield is 27-year- old Mikael Trewick.
Mike is the latest recruit to the National Trust ranger team responsible for looking after the charity’s Marsden Moor Estate, whose beautiful hills dominate the skyline and are a haven for wildlife, as well as a vital source of the drinking water for the towns below.
Appointed just a few weeks ago, Mike is thrilled with his new role.
“I tell people ‘I am Mikael Trewick, assistant ranger on the Marsden Moor Estate and Hardcastle Crags’. I’m sure people will get sick of hearing it but it means so much to me, I haven’t stopped smiling since I was told I’d got the job,” he said.
He and his dedicated team of volunteers are hard at work in all weathers to keep the estate’s 2,300 hectares of moorland – part of the region’s ‘green lung’ – in good condition and ensure its functions as a water catchment and carbon capture area, as well as a site of international importance for wildlife and habitats are not impaired.
“My main role is to fulfil the Trust’s obligations within Moorlife 2020 project on the Marsden Moor Estate. Which is EU funded and part of the wider Moors for the Future Partnership,” explained Mike.
“This involves using a shiny new all-terrain vehicle with a whacking great flail on the front to cut a grass species called molinia, which out competes other moorland species and dries up the blanket bog habitat. I also get to tackle Invasive species such as rhododendron.
“On the other side of the role, I will be based at Hardcastle Crags, near Hebden Bridge, undertaking aspects of woodland and hay meadow management with Andrew Marsh, the ranger there, and helping to expand our volunteer ranger teams.”
Mike, from Hatfield, near Doncaster has been a keen conservationist since his earliest years.
“We lived next to the Humberhead Levels peatland site which was extensively milled for horticulture, it was known as the wastes and I was always corrected when I said there was nothing there.
“As I grew up, the ‘wastes’ switched hands to English Nature (now Natural England) and I watched the site gradually returned to a healthier and wetter state. Just seeing the changes in my short lifetime told me I could do something equally inspiring,” said Mike.
Mike has been utterly dedicated in his pursuit for a career in nature conservation.
After studying environmental science at school he became a trainee planning engineer and was working on a flood relief scheme in Barrow-In- Furness with Kier Construction and United Utilities when he decided to start a part-time degree in Environmental Studies.
In 2009 he became a Sunday volunteer with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust at Potteric Carr, near Doncaster, and in February 2010 was taken on for four days a week under the Future Jobs fund scheme. This was followed by three traineeships, two survey roles and some casual Higher Level Stewardship volunteering.
After an eight-month stint volunteering around the UK with Worldwide Working on Organic Farms, he signed up for a Countryside Management degree at Askham Bryan College, near York, and also
started self-employed contract work on dry stone walling, invasive species control on moorland, fencing and general habitat management.
Mike achieved a first class honours degree from Askham Bryan and carried on with self-employed work for his brother’s newly-established environmental land management company, as well as
volunteering for Fix the Fells in Cumbria.
Last year he joined the team at Hardcastle Crags as a volunteer ranger team leader and the work party team at Marsden Moor.
He said: “It has been tough but if you want something and stick to it, no matter how many nights you sleep in your car in winter, how many miles you drive overnight to be there for another
volunteer day or eat tinned potatoes as a meal.
“You get such a sense of achievement at the end of each day. It really does enrich you as a person.”
