Alliance tackles unbalanced report about controlled burning

The Countryside Alliance Press Office responded to a BBC article this week, which levelled several spurious claims against the practice of controlled burning. 

Disappointingly, the Countryside Alliance had not been contacted prior to publication, and it is unclear whether any local gamekeepers or moorland group representatives had been approached either. Consequently, the article featured no counterargument.

When we were made aware of the article several hours after it was uploaded to the BBC website, we released a rebuttal and questioned why no attempt had been made to provide balance to the claims being made within the piece.

The article focused on comments made by Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust, following two controlled burns that were carried out near Stanage Edge and Strines Moor in the Peak District on Monday. The Trust condemned the practice.

As we made clear the BBC, the controlled burning of heather on small areas of dry heath 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.  Contrary to the claims made by the Trust, this benefits not just red grouse, a species that is unique to the United Kingdom, but also many species of threatened ground nesting waders that share this habitat to breed. On moors managed for grouse shooting, ground-nesting birds such as curlew and lapwing - which are amongst our species of the highest conservation concern - are four times more likely to successfully raise chicks. A survey of upland breeding birds in parts of England and Scotland also found that the densities of golden plover, curlew, redshank, and lapwing were up to five times greater on managed grouse moors compared to unmanaged moorland.

Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust appear to be 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. It is because of their management that more than 60 percent of England’s upland Sites of Special Scientific Interest are managed grouse moors, and over 40 percent have also been designated as Special Protection Areas for rare birds and Special Areas of Conservation for rare vegetation under the EU Birds and Habitats Directives.

Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust might condemn the practice, but the cool controlled burning of heather, as carried out by gamekeepers, also encourages the growth of peat forming sphagnum moss which filters and absorbs water, making our moors wetter. The aim is to create many microhabitats 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. It appears the Trust is also ignorant of the fact that the rotational burning of heather can help reduce the risk of damaging wildfires and the loss of carbon as a result of them. 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 wildfire on the RSPB managed Saddleworth Moor in 2018, which was followed by a further serious wildfire in February 2019, took three weeks to bring under control. Firefighters from seven counties fought the blaze, assisted by gamekeepers and neighbouring land managers in the Peak District. It was those gamekeepers from nine shooting estates from across the Peak District that were able to provide much-needed experience and specialist fire-fighting equipment. Some four-square miles of moorland were destroyed, and the environmental damage was considerable. The moor had a no-burn policy. Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust would do well to take note of this.