Burning's place in the management of our peatlands

Adrian Blackmore, the Countryside Alliance’s Director of Shooting, examines burning’s place in the management of our peatlands in this article from My Countryside magazine.

Heather growing on peat soil can quickly become dominant and out of control when left unmanaged, but methods of managing the vegetation have been an area of fierce debate for many years. Some landowners have long opted to use fire as a method to maintain healthy growth, while others have taken to mowing, or leaving the vegetation unmanaged. In order to compare the key aspects of these three management options in relation to mitigating climate change, increasing water storage and quality, and increasing biodiversity, researchers at the University of York are undertaking Peatland-ES-UK, a 20-year study that has been designed in conjunction with Defra and Natural England to provide robust and reliable results. The study has been assessed by an advisory group with representatives from all interested parties, including upland groups, water companies, and the National Environment Research Council, and the findings after the first 10 years of the study are significant.

Heather peatland gathers and stores atmospheric carbon, retains water, provides much of our drinking water, can reduce flooding, and provides a habitat for many different species of wildlife. The project has studied three moorland peat bogs in northern England where heather has been managed either by burning, mowing, or being left untouched. When compared with unmanaged plots, the study has shown that the burning and mowing of heather supported an increased diversity of vegetation, with higher levels of sphagnum mosses, which hold a lot of water and promote peat-forming conditions. The study also predicted a greater number of some ground-nesting birds, many of which are red listed as being of conservation concern, as taller, unmanaged heather limits appropriate nesting sites. Burning was also found to be particularly good both for carbon uptake, and nutrient content for grazing animals. 

Capturing carbon

Concerns around burning are often focused on the emissions from the fire, but whilst carbon loss from burnt areas was found to be higher than from mowing in the short term, it fell as the vegetation regrew, taking up a lot more carbon in the long term. Over 10 years, burnt plots absorbed more than twice the carbon when compared with mown areas.  

The study found that whilst there were some initial benefits to allowing heather to grow unmanaged, it became less efficient at taking up carbon as it aged. Unmanaged plots were also found to have a lower water table than those managed either by burning or mowing, which could prove relevant to ongoing carbon storage projects, which employ significant resources to raise water tables on moorland areas in order to capture and retain more carbon. 

The lowering of water tables and resultant drying out of the peat on unmanaged areas can be a very real fire risk due to our warmer and drier summers as a result of climate change. The damage caused by wildfires can be catastrophic because, unlike the controlled cool burns that are carried out by grouse moor managers, they result in huge carbon losses, and environmental damage, due to the fire burning into the underlying peat. An example of this was the 2019 wildfire of Scotland’s Flow Country, a UNESCO World Heritage site which had become overgrown, and which resulted in over 22 square miles of moorland being severely damaged, with some 700,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent released into the atmosphere, doubling the country’s greenhouse gas emissions for the six days it burned. 

Looking to the future

The impact of climate change is being felt around the globe, and we are not alone in needing the most suitable techniques to be available in order to prevent wildfires. Like grouse moor managers, who have been using burning and the cutting of vegetation to reduce fuel loads on peatland, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) has also been reducing fuel loads across its sanctuaries and partnership sites. With responsibility for delivering Australia’s largest non-government prescribed burning programme, the AWC has completed some 12,000 miles of aerial burns by helicopter, along with 337 miles of ground ignitions, and in doing so they have more than halved the frequency and extent of wildfires across the area over which they have been carried out, measurably improving biodiversity outcomes for native animals and plants. 

Although there are a further 10 years of this 20-year research project still to be undertaken, the study’s interim findings are extremely important both  for policy makers, and those responsible  for managing our heather moorlands, as some of the answers as to how heather burning compares with mowing or leaving the vegetation uncut are finally being provided. No two grouse moors are the same, with some being wetter than others, some predominantly blanket bog or deep peat as opposed to dry heath, and with altitude and orientation also impacting on the manner, and frequency, in which management needs to be undertaken. When it comes to that management, the researchers have found that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, and that all three techniques can support active healthy peatland given the right conditions and circumstances. Consequently, burning, cutting, and leaving heather unmanaged should all be available management tools, depending on which is most suitable for any particular piece of land and its aspects; a finding that is of particular importance.

Sadly, the RSPB has to date chosen to ignore available scientific research and evidence, and taken every opportunity  to call on the government to ban all burning on peatland, regardless of the consequences. Recently, this was on the back of a fundamentally flawed ‘investigation’ which saw the RSPB encouraging members of the public to use its new app to report burning on peatlands. This resulted in claims that burning was still taking place illegally and on a large scale, contrary to Defra’s Heather and Grass Burning (England) Regulations, and reports of 1,584 alleged breaches being passed to Natural England and Defra as formal complaints. However, following a parliamentary written question by Sir Robert Goodwill, MP for Scarborough and Whitby, and Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, it was revealed that just one of those 1,584 cases had been in breach of the regulations. This was where a single fire set on heather growing on shallow peat had encroached onto an area of heather growing on pockets of deeper peat.

It is hoped that the RSPB will take note of these findings from the University of York which are the result of 10 years of rigorous scientific study, as to do otherwise would be irresponsible, and further damage their credibility. The RSPB needs to consider more than just their dislike of grouse shooting and focus instead on how we might best mitigate climate change and reduce the risk of devastating wildfires, increase both water storage and quality, and increase biodiversity. It would be beneficial if they could see their way to do this in partnership with those responsible for managing our grouse moors, whose aim it is to protect and enhance these treasured upland landscapes of international importance.