Wildfire Policy is Changing in Europe. Defra Needs to Catch Up

✅ KEY TAKEAWAY: Defra must abandon anti-management dogma and adopt Europe’s pragmatic approach to wildfire resilience. Active, site-specific moorland stewardship, including prescribed burning and restoration, is essential for climate adaptation.

A new European Commission guidance document on Natura 2000 and climate change deserves attention from everyone involved in moorland management.

Though not binding in the UK, it shows where mainstream conservation policy is moving: towards climate adaptation, wildfire resilience and more practical, site-based management. The document recognises rising wildfire risk and the need to reduce fuel loads and fuel continuity across vulnerable landscapes.

The message is not “ban management”, but “use the right tool in the right place”.

That matters in the UK, where the upland debate has too often been reduced to slogans. The Commission document does not treat active management as inherently suspect. It explicitly says ecosystem-based fuel management can include thinning, prescribed burning and extensive grazing, and it argues that wildfire prevention should be a priority in landscape planning.

Prescribed burning is recognised

The guidance is clear that well-planned prescribed burning can be a legitimate and cost-effective tool in some ecosystems adapted to low or mixed-severity fire. It specifically mentions some grasslands, Mediterranean forests and shrublands, temperate heathlands, and boreal forests. It also links prescribed burning, alongside grazing, to wider fuel-management and habitat-management goals.

That is important. It shows that controlled burning is not being written out of serious European conservation thinking. On the contrary, it is recognised as one of the tools that can have a place in reducing severe wildfire risk when used in the right habitats and under the right conditions.

On bogs and mires - NOT all upland peat - the priority is restoration

The first point to make clear is that the Commission is not talking about all upland peat. When it refers to “bogs, mires, fens & marshes”, it is using a habitat category, not a blanket label for every peat-dominated landscape. Its approach is habitat-based and site-specific.

Within that habitat category, the document places the main emphasis on restoration, rewetting and the recovery of healthy vegetation. The main action identified is “Habitat restoration: rewetting, tree removal & restoring vegetation where necessary”, which the document says improves water retention and helps reduce flood, drought and fire risks. Grazing and prescribed burning are also mentioned in that section, but not as the primary restoration tool.

So this is not a Europe-wide endorsement of burning as the answer for all peatland, still less all upland peat habitats. It is a more measured point: on bogs and mires, healthier, wetter and better-restored habitat is itself part of fire prevention.

Why this still matters for UK moorland management

The Commission’s approach is refreshingly free of ideology. It does not say ‘always burn’, and it does not say ‘never intervene’. It says protected landscapes need practical management that fits the habitat, the condition of the site and the risks they face. That is a more serious approach than the crude anti-management thinking that has too often shaped debate in Britain.

That is precisely the point many moorland managers have been making for years. Different upland habitats require different tools. In some places, prescribed burning may have a legitimate role. In others, especially bog and mire habitats, the document places greater emphasis on restoration, rewetting and vegetation recovery. Grazing, cutting, hydrological work and other forms of stewardship all remain part of the wider management picture.

The real enemy is dogma

What this document challenges is the idea that there is a single answer for every upland landscape. It recognises the danger of unmanaged fuel build-up, the reality of worsening wildfire risk, and the need for landscape planning that improves resilience before fires take hold. It also recognises that some habitats that were once protected by damp conditions are becoming more vulnerable to severe fire during prolonged drought.

That should challenge the lazy assumption, still common in Britain, that less management always means better conservation. The choice is not between “management” and “nature”. The real question is not whether to manage, but whether we are prepared to use the right management in the right place before the next major fire answers it for us.

A better way to frame the argument

This document confirms that active management remains central to climate adaptation and wildfire resilience. Europe is not saying “ban management”; it is saying “use the right tool in the right place”. Prescribed burning remains a legitimate tool in some habitats, while on bogs and mires the document places greater emphasis on restoration, rewetting and the recovery of healthy vegetation.

Britain should learn the right lesson

The lesson for UK policy should be straightforward. We need less dogma and more judgment. Less blanket thinking and more habitat-specific management. Less hostility to those who work on the land, and more recognition that resilient moorlands depend on active stewardship.

That is the real value of this document. It does not settle every argument. But it does point towards a more mature position: one that takes wildfire seriously, values restoration where restoration is needed, and accepts that good moorland management means using the right tool in the right place.

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