| Cotherstone Moor | |
| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 Moorland of Cotherstone Moor | |
| Country | England |
|---|---|
| Region | North East |
| District | Teesdale |
| Location | NY940170 |
| - coordinates | 54°32′55″N2°5′37″W / 54.54861°N 2.09361°W Coordinates: 54°32′55″N2°5′37″W / 54.54861°N 2.09361°W |
| Area | 2,449.45 ha (6,052.72 acres) |
| Notification | 1955 |
| Management | Natural England |
| Area of Search | County Durham |
| Interest | Biological |
  Location of Cotherstone Moor SSSI, Co Durham | |
| Website: Map of site | |
Cotherstone Moor is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Teesdale district in south-west County Durham, England. It is an extensive area of moorland which extends almost the entire length of Baldersdale, from the confluence of the River Balder with the Tees at Cotherstone. It runs parallel to Bowes Moor SSSI, which lies a short distance to the south.
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I".
Teesdale was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district in County Durham, England. Its council was based in Barnard Castle and it was named after the valley of the River Tees.
County Durham is a county in North East England. The county town is Durham, a cathedral city. The largest settlement is Darlington, closely followed by Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees. It borders Tyne and Wear to the north east, Northumberland to the north, Cumbria to the west and North Yorkshire to the south. The county's historic boundaries stretch between the rivers Tyne and Tees, thus including places such as Gateshead, Jarrow, South Shields and Sunderland.
The area includes a variety of upland vegetation types, much of it blanket bog, including one area that is found nowhere else in County Durham and which is unusual for being transitional between northern upland and lowland bogs. Other habitats include dry heath, acid grassland, flushes, and rock and block scree.
Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses of undulating ground. The blanketing of the ground with a variable depth of peat gives the habitat type its name. Blanket bogs are found extensively throughout the northern hemisphere - well-studied examples are found in Ireland and Britain, but vast areas of the Russian and North American tundra also qualify as blanket bogs.
Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of crags, mountain cliffs, volcanoes or valley shoulders that has accumulated through periodic rockfall from adjacent cliff faces. Landforms associated with these materials are often called talus deposits. Talus deposits typically have a concave upwards form, while the maximum inclination corresponds to the angle of repose of the mean debris size.
The area supports breeding populations of a number of species of birds that are listed in the United Kingdom's Red Data Book (Birds), including four that are listed in Annex 1 of the European Commission's Birds Directive as requiring special protection. [1]
The United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as the UK or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
A Regional Red List (RRL) is a report of the threatened status of species within a certain country or region. It is based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an inventory of the conservation status of species on a global scale. Regional Red Lists assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit and therefore may feed directly into national and regional planning. This project is coordinated by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and partners in national governments, universities and organizations throughout the world.
The Birds Directive is a European Union directive adopted in 2009. It replaces Council Directive 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds which was modified several times and had become very unclear. It aims to protect all European wild birds and the habitats of listed species, in particular through the designation of Special Protection Areas.
The Pennine Way National Trail passes through the area.
The Pennine Way is a National Trail in England, with a small section in Scotland. The trail runs 267 miles (429 km) from Edale, in the northern Derbyshire Peak District, north through the Yorkshire Dales and the Northumberland National Park and ends at Kirk Yetholm, just inside the Scottish border. The path runs along the Pennine hills, sometimes described as the "backbone of England". Although not the United Kingdom's longest National Trail, it is according to the Ramblers' Association "one of Britain's best known and toughest".
