Adrian Blackmore: Olivia Blake MP is wrong on burning of heather on peatland

Adrian Blackmore, our Director of the Campaign for Shooting, has written a letter that has been published by the Yorkshire Post in response to a recent comment piece by Sheffield Hallam MP, Olivia Blake, on controlled burning.

In her article ''Burning question of protecting peatland'', (the Yorkshire Post, August 18) Olivia Blake appears to be blissfully unaware that grouse moor management has played a key role in creating and maintaining our upland landscape, preserving and improving heather habitat and peatland, sustaining some of our rarest plants and wildlife, and promoting biodiversity.

The controlled burning of heather on small areas of shallow peat is carried out to increase the diversity of heather age and structure, ensuring there is a mixture of older heather for protection and nesting, younger heather for feeding, and a fresh burn where regrowth is just starting.

It also encourages the growth of peat forming sphagnum moss which filters and absorbs water, making our moors wetter.

The aim is to create lots of micro habitats so that within one acre of moorland the widest possible range of biodiversity, from insects to reptiles, and mammals to birds, have the full range of habitats they require.

This is not disastrous for nature as Ms Blake claims; it is quite the opposite, and to imply otherwise is a sign either of wilful ignorance or blindness.

So too is her claim that damaging wildfires can often be the result of controlled burning. Such a lack of understanding defies belief.

The fact is (and accurate facts appear to be something that Ms Blake has in very short supply), rotational burning can help reduce the risk of damaging wildfires and the loss of carbon as a result of these.

Large stands of rank and woody heather, like any other unmanaged vegetation, pose a major fire risk due to a significant build-up of fuel loads.

The latest research, which Ms Blake is clearly unaware of, despite being a Member of Parliament with moorland in her constituency, has found that: heather burning can have a positive effect on carbon capture; burning does not cause water discolouration; environmentally important Sphagnum moss recovers quickly from low severity 'cool' burning; the loss of controlled burning in the USA led to declines in bird life and an increase in damaging wildfires; and greenhouse gas emissions from controlled burning are relatively insignificant compared to emissions from wildfire, or indeed severely degraded lowland peatlands used for agriculture. It is her complete lack of understanding and disregard of reality that has helped make Labour's voice so weak in the countryside.

Keep up to date with the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting by signing up to newsletter, here