Burning in the UK’s uplands: the need for a precautionary approach

(c) Ian Francis (rspb-images.com)

Today’s blog is written by the RSPB’s Patrick Thompson and Andrew Midgely, Senior Policy Officers for land use, on the practice of managed burning and the overall balance of scientific evidence.

A recent mid-study report by Dr Andreas Heinemeyer from the University of York into the management of heather moorland suggests that managed burning, cutting and even non-intervention should all be available to land managers giving them a choice of management techniques to use.

The use of fire as a tool in land management has a long history. Fire is used to manage vegetation to deliver specific outcomes: gamekeepers use it to manage heather for grouse and farmers use it to improve grazing for livestock. In the past, the RSPB has also used fire in the management of our nature reserves. 

However, burning has become a more contentious issue and as more and more scientific evidence has emerged, our view of it has changed over time. The evolving research base and increasing concern about the climate emergency has led us to re-think our position. We no longer use fire as a management tool on moorland and we believe that burning should stop on particularly sensitive areas like peatlands, and that the practice needs to be more strongly regulated.  

We have reached this view based on the science available in this field. Whilst some of the science is itself vigorously debated, we believe that the balance of scientific opinion falls on the side of burning being problematic. In this we follow the IUCN Peatland Programme which has said that there is consensus, based on the current body of scientific evidence, that burning on peatland can result in damage to peatland species, peatland plants and wider peatland habitat, peat soils and peatland ecosystem functions. Similarly, the UK government has said in the Peat Action Plan for England that while there continues to be scientific debate over aspects of the environmental impact of managed burning, there is a large and increasing body of literature that provides evidence that overall managed burning is damaging to peatland. 

As an evidence-based organisation, we strive to ensure that the policy positions we adopt are informed by scientific evidence. So it is with some interest that we have noted the recently released report. This research compared burning to the alternatives of mowing and uncut management and has concluded that all management tools, including burning, should be available to land managers. Indeed, it suggests that burning may be beneficial and enhance carbon storage in the longer term. 

So, what does this research mean for our position on burning and will we be changing our thinking around burning as a result of it?  

The short answer is not right now. 

It is important that we are not pulled around by the latest report. It is important that policy is guided by the overall balance of the evidence and, at the moment, despite this most recent addition to the evidence base, the balance appears to remain on the side of burning being detrimental, particularly where the aim is to restore damaged peatland to a natural state.  

We believe that there are compelling evidence-based reasons to take a highly precautionary approach to burning over peat, but we will continue to keep a close eye on this area of research as it continues to develop.