The Government has announced today, Tuesday 9 September, that it is to extend the ban on burning of heather and grass on deep peat. That extension, which will come into force from 30 September, follows the Consultation on Heather and Grass Burning in England that was undertaken earlier in the year; a consultation that was based on a number of assumptions that are fundamentally flawed. The rigorous science and evidence required when making policy decisions had either been overlooked or ignored, with the most recent research not having been taken into account. What was equally worrying, and remains the case, is the government’s lack of understanding and knowledge of moorland areas and the importance of their management.
Our response to the consultation, which can be read here, highlighted our grave concerns with the government’s proposals to expand protections to all deep peat in the uplands by redefining its depth from the present 40cm to 30cm and extending the ban on burning from 220,000 hectares to 676,628 hectares. Despite having highlighted all the science and evidence which supports the continued use of burning as an essential management tool, our concerns, along with those of other organisations with an understanding of the issues at hand, have been totally disregarded. It is now clear that the consultation was no more than a tick-box exercise, the government having already decided on the course of action it would be taking.
The government claims that “restricting burning will help restore and re-wet peatlands” and that “the new measures will create resilient peatlands that are naturally protected from wildfires”. That will not be the case. Deep peat and blanket bog are not synonymous, and although blanket bog may also be deep peat, not all deep peat is blanket bog. Leaving vegetation unmanaged on blanket bog does not mean it will cease to be susceptible to wildfires. Scotland’s Flow Country is widely considered the most outstanding example of a blanket bog ecosystem in the world, but that did not prevent 22 square miles of that UNESCO world heritage site being damaged by a wildfire in 2019 due to the vegetation becoming overgrown. This resulted in 700,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent being released into the atmosphere, doubling the country’s greenhouse gas emissions for the six days it burned. Unlike the cool controlled burning that is undertaken by moorland managers, wildfires produce smoke that is considerably more harmful, ruining air quality, and damage the precious ecosystems in our unique heather uplands.
The Future Landscapes Forum, a group of academics and experts with specialist knowledge of the management, ecology, functioning, and fire risk associated with heather-dominated landscapes in the UK was correct when it published a Position Statement in 2023. In that Statement they expressed their growing concern that the debate about managing heather moorlands, including on peatlands, was neither properly informed nor evidence-based. As a result, dangerous policy decisions were being made that ignored the positive social and ecological effects of controlled burning and disregarded a large body of evidence showing that burning can support wildfire prevention, carbon capture and improve biodiversity. Given today’s announcement by the government, their concerns were clearly well founded.
The horrendous damage caused by numerous wildfires in recent months has been devastating. These further restrictions come at an incredibly sensitive time for moorland communities and rather than protecting our globally unique network of peatland, the government’s removal of burning as an essential management tool can be expected to have significant negative consequences for the environment and livelihoods, further increasing the risk of devastating wildfires that are already at an all-time high. This latest policy is not just dangerous; it is also grossly irresponsible.