The Rewetting Myth: Why Is Natural England Ignoring the One Country That Tested It – and Found It Fails When It Matters Most?
- Andrew Gilruth
- Jun 11
- 3 min read
Ask Natural England where in the world you can go to see a landscape protected from wildfire by rewetting - and the answer is silence. Deafening silence. That would be odd if it had only just started looking into it. But Natural England has spent the last four years reviewing the evidence.
It considered studies from the UK and:
Belarus
Canada
China
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Norway
Spain
Ukraine
USA (including Alaska)
Australia
But not Indonesia - the only country in the world that has actually tried rewetting at scale and studied its effect on wildfire.
So what does the 2023 Indonesia study show?
In Riau province - where rewetting projects began in 2018 - scientists used high-resolution fire modelling and satellite data to track what happened.
Rewetting only reduced the number of extreme fire events by 40%.
Only slightly shrank the area affected by fire (by 5%).
Indonesia even has a monsoon season but rewetting did nothing to reduce how long fires burned once they got going. In fact, the average duration of extreme events increased, from 19 days before rewetting to nearly 30 days after. It is believed this was driven by longer dryer weather, just as we are expecting here in the UK. Reliance on rewetting alone to control wildfires appears folly.
So who, exactly, backs a policy that fails to prevent the majority of wildfires?
Rewetting alone does not tackle long-duration fire risk. It is not the cure-all Natural England claims.
Yet Natural England is still pushing this as its core wildfire policy. Defra hasn’t yet confirmed whether it will accept this advice or recommend it to the Minister. But someone, somewhere, must surely start asking questions.
Because this isn’t the first time Natural England has ignored inconvenient science.
Take the University of York’s long-term moorland study, co-designed by Natural England itself. When reviewing it, NE somehow overlooked one crucial finding: Every prescribed burning site studied showed considerable net carbon accumulation over the long term.
That’s right: prescribed burning, the tool Natural England wants to shut down, is busy storing carbon.
Surely wildfires release more carbon?
Yes. This is another area Natural England appears not to have had time, over the last four years, to estimate - despite the fact its current policies have already resulted in even more intense wildfires.
Unlike prescribed burning, which reduces wildfire fuel load, initially releases carbon before then locking it away as the new vegetation booms and protects the peat underneath - wildfires produce intense heat and emissions.
Estimates from around the world vary but this Moorland Association summary below suggests 50 times more carbon dioxide is typical - never mind the other particulates. We feel it is astonishing that Natural England has not produced a net carbon impact assessment of a policy it is recommending to government. Did it think no one would ever ask to see one?
What’s going on here?
It’s starting to look like the government’s own environmental advisor has an agenda - to bury any evidence that doesn’t support its existing policies and not asking questions it does not want answered.
Whether it’s rewetting or prescribed burning, the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore.
And that’s a problem. Because science should guide policy - not the other way around.
How long can this go on?
Natural England has:
Spent four years gathering evidence - but ignored the one country which has actually studied rewetting and already published its findings.
Overlooking key findings of long-term UK research it helped design - we can only assume because the results didn’t fit Natural England policy.
Failed to provide a clear answer when asked where rewetting has ever prevented fire in real-world landscapes.
This is not policy based on science. This is policy based on belief.
And with real decisions now looming, real ministers being briefed, and real landscapes at risk - it’s becoming completely untenable.
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