Playing with Fire: The Policies Turning Moorlands into Tinderboxes

Moorlands are vital parts of our landscape, but they face a growing threat: devastating wildfires. These fires aren't just a natural phenomenon; they're heavily influenced by how we manage the land.

A key term in this discussion is fuel load management – essentially, controlling the amount of combustible material like heather that can burn. When there's more "fuel," fires burn hotter, longer, and cause more damage.

But what's the best way to manage this fuel?

Using Controlled Burning to Prevent Wildfire

Historically, a method called controlled burning (also known as muirburn) has been used to manage heather moorland.

• How Controlled Burning Works: This practice involves using fire to keep heather at a healthy level. This benefits local wildlife, allows other plants to grow, and crucially, reduces the overall fuel load, making wildfires less intense and easier to control Geoff Eyre, a renowned conservationist, even developed a safer "cool burning" technique, done earlier in the year when conditions are wetter.

• Beyond Fire Breaks: Burning also encourages new, young heather growth and adds nutrients to the soil from ash, helping other plant species like cotton grasses thrive. Eyre's work on Howden Moor, for example, restored the area from moor grass and bracken to heather, leading to a boom in skylarks and meadow pipits, and even the first hen harrier breeding in 140 years.

• Dispelling Myths: A common concern is that burning damages peat. However, Geoff Eyre's simple yet effective demonstrations (like burning over chocolate bars and £50 notes placed on the moss layer) showed that cool burns don't harm the underlying peat or moss. While smoke can be an issue in certain conditions, air quality tests after one incident in Sheffield found pollutant levels were within legal and World Health Organisation guidelines.

• Global Practice: Controlled burning isn't unique to the UK; countries like USA, South Africa, France, Portugal, and Spain also use it to manage fuel loads.

Why Cutting Can Be Worse

While burning is controversial, cutting heather as an alternative is deeply problematic.

• A "Bonfire" Effect: Wildfire specialist Steve Gibson argues that cutting can be "worse than not doing anything" because it leaves behind a highly combustible layer of dead fuel that dries out very quickly. This "brash" essentially creates a massive bonfire, helping fires spread rather than contain them.

• Habitat Destruction: Gamekeepers point out that large machinery used for cutting can destroy the natural bumps and hollows (microtopography) in the moorland, leaving a flat, "bowling green" effect. This isn't ideal for retaining moisture or encouraging diverse plant life.

• Ticks and Bracken: Cutting also leaves behind invasive and poisonous bracken. Plus, the thick layer of "brash" provides a perfect breeding ground for ticks, increasing the risk of Lyme disease for people and affecting wildlife like mountain hares and birds.

The Blame Game: Criticisms of Major Players

Natural England, the National Trust, and the RSPB have been criticized for their land management decisions, especially regarding fuel loads.

• Ignoring Warnings: These organizations are accused of not taking fuel load management seriously, leading to devastating wildfires. For instance, despite warnings, the National Trust introduced a strict "no-burn rule" on Howden Moor, resulting in large wildfires that destroyed years of restoration work

• Reliance on "Flawed" Research: A key issue is the influence of research like the "EMBER" report, which Natural England, the National Trust, and RSPB cite to claim burning damages peat and releases carbon .

  • However, ecologists Andreas Heinemeyer and Mark Ashby co-wrote a critique, calling EMBER "experimentally flawed" because it didn't account for crucial factors like climate and rainfall, comparing naturally wetter unburned areas with burned ones ("apples and oranges").

  • They also found issues with artificially high soil temperature readings. Despite these flaws, the EMBER report has significantly influenced environmental policy.

• Bureaucracy and Inexperience: Natural England's policies are described as inconsistent, with a "foggy chain of command" and a lack of experienced staff, often called "desktop conservationists" who ignore the practical knowledge of local farmers and gamekeepers. Licensing for burning and cutting is slow and overly complicated, hindering effective management.

• Financial Motives? There's a suggestion that wildlife organizations use wildfires on their land to attract public donations and government funding, benefiting from being "victims" of the very fires their policies may have exacerbated.

Rewetting: A Risky Bet?

A popular strategy, especially promoted by Natural England and the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, is rewetting moors by planting sphagnum moss to prevent fires, restore peat, and even reduce flooding. However, this approach faces significant scepticism.

• Unproven Fire Defense: While rewetting might encourage sphagnum, its effectiveness against wildfires is questioned. Ecologist Robin Pakeman notes that "blanket bogs still burn," and examples like Hatfield Moors, managed by Natural England, have experienced severe fires despite high water tables. The West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service even states that permanent saturation makes "little difference to surface fire behaviour" during dry, windy weather.

• Failed Efforts: Geoff Eyre describes how expensive sphagnum planting efforts on Howden Moor largely failed to produce visible results.

• Questionable Flood Control: Ecologist James Fenton dismisses claims about peat's ability to control floods as "twaddle," explaining that peat acts "like a solid block of concrete" that doesn't effectively drain water.

• Unrealistic Expectations: The rewetting strategy is criticized as a "fantasy" and "mis-selling" an unproven solution, especially for areas like the Peak District that naturally dry out in summer.

Broader Landscape Concerns: Farmers, Funding, and "Nationalisation"

The issues extend beyond just fire management, touching on the future of rural communities and land ownership.

• Farmers Under Siege: Rural communities feel that external rules disregard their traditional knowledge and push "unproven and expensive trends". Laws like Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), advocated by the RSPB, are seen as forcing farmers into schemes that risk their livelihoods and land, potentially leading to a "backdoor nationalisation" of property through SSSI designations. Farmers are being encouraged to shift from food production to "environmental goods and services," which some critics view as pointless PR exercises.

• Loss of Expertise: There's a "brain drain" of skilled workers like farmers, gamekeepers, and dry stone wallers, whose traditional expertise is being lost due to these new policies.

• Wasted Public Money: Concerns are raised about the lack of transparency and accountability from organisations receiving large grants for "restoration" projects that are deemed ineffective or wasteful, such as a failed tree-planting scheme at Haweswater or a project for Bilberry Bumblebees. Critics argue there's "no strategic overview" for land management, only "leaping onto bandwagons" for grant money.

In essence, there are conflicting management philosophies, where long-standing practical knowledge is often overlooked in favour of policies based on disputed research and driven by powerful external organisations, leading to increased wildfire risks and a perceived decline in rural livelihoods and traditions.

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