GROUSE-MOOR MANAGEMENT: A BURNING ISSUE

Is controlled rotational burning an important tool to preserve moorland, prevent wildfires and keep carbon in the soil – or should we ‘ban the burn’?

- IAN COGHILL

A simple lie beats a complex truth far too often for the future safety of our countryside. The RSPB’s remorseless attacks on grouse moors and rotational heather burning are classic examples. According to them, rotational cool heather burning burns peat, causes floods, destroys biodiversity, drives global warming and is the same as burning tropical rainforest or the lethal and catastrophic wildfires that raged through Australia and California.

None of these assertions – which are easy to make and, coming from RSPB, often believed – is true. However, their refutation takes time and thought, which few people are prepared to give.

Does it matter? Yes, it does. What is at stake is not simply grouse shooting but the survival of our heather moorland, the rare and precious wildlife it supports and the communities of reasonable people whose chosen way of life this threatens to destroy.

Although the RSPB repeatedly refers to grouse moors as ‘industrial landscapes’, nothing could be further from the truth. They are replete with designations: Site of Special Scientific Interest; Special Area of Conservation; Special Protection Area; many have been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or fall into National Parks. They were recognised internationally in the Rio Convention. Crucially, they acquired their designations because they were grouse moors, not despite being grouse moors.