This month sees the return of the burning season in England, and the relaunch of our app to allow members of the public to report incidents of burning on peatland. We need you to tell us when and where burning is taking place to support our call for the UK Government to ban burning on peatland.
With the days shortening and the leaves turning, we can expect to see smoke rising over the northern English uplands from October to March, the heather and grass burning season.
During this time, estates linked to grouse shooting deploy burning as a tool to remove unfavourable vegetation and encourage the growth of young heather – a food source for grouse and livestock.
Burning often takes place on globally threatened upland habitats, such as blanket bogs, which have developed over millennia and store large amounts of carbon vital to tackling the climate crisis.
Indeed, 79 per cent of reports we received in 2023/24 via the burning app were reported from sites designated as Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas.
The 2023/24 burning season was unusually wet, with difficult burning conditions throughout the autumn and spring, and by the looks of it, this year’s season may well be the same, but that doesn’t mean the risk posed by burning is any less.
Since we started monitoring burning back in 2021/22 we have received 632 reports of burning via the RSPB’s burning app, our custom-made reporting tool, which helps us keep track of burning across England.
During the burning season, the RSPB regularly shares reports of burning received on the app with both Natural England and Defra, to highlight those areas where we believe burning inside protected areas and/or on peat soils may have occurred.
Despite reporting multiple instances last burning season, where we believe the burning regulations are likely to have been breached, Defra have confirmed that no breaches were recorded on the four sites they referred for further investigation.
This was in stark contrast to the previous season where two estates were successfully prosecuted for illegal burning. Regardless, the information you provide is invaluable in helping us understand where burning is taking place and where it needs to end.
Reporting a burn is quick, easy and anonymous and you can do so by visiting reporting page on the RSPB website or by downloading the My Survey123 app (available on iOS and Android).
Once you have downloaded the app head to the RSPB website and follow the steps to sign up to the Upland Burning Survey Form.
To report a current or recent burn all you need to do is provide the location of the burn, the date and information on whether it was an active or recent burn. The data collected will be passed on to the relevant authorities to help them identify and tackle illegal burning in our uplands.
By downloading our app and reporting evidence of burning you can play a vital role in helping to show our governments that despite current legislation burning on carbon-rich blanket bogs is still taking place across our uplands. Ending burning will be a key step in ensuring we can turn around the fate of this globally important habitat in the UK.
We continue to have concerns about the impact of burning on the condition of our globally important blanket bogs.
Restoring our upland peatlands has a key role to play in reducing carbon emissions, safeguarding raw water quality, reducing flooding in storm events and ensuring that upland peatlands continue to support a special assemblage of species.
Continuing to burn these internationally important habitats will only further damage these habitats, making restoration ever more challenging. Despite the major restoration effort now underway, England is falling well short of its climate targets for 2050.
In May 2021, the UK Government introduced new regulations (The Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations) that prohibit burning vegetation on peat over 40cm deep on a designated site – except when carried out under licence.
Despite these regulations, peatland vegetation continues to be burnt, including on areas of deep peat and inside specially protected sites. Some sites are still being illegally burnt.
Last season, we also conducted our own investigations into some of the reports received via the RSPB app. On six grouse moors visited in the north of England where fires were reported to us, we found evidence of new burns on deep peat within designated sites.
Natural England are producing an all-England peat map. The map, due to be published next spring, will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the distribution, depth and condition of peatland and will be a tremendous asset in the struggle to bring our amazing peatlands into a more favourable state.
We await to see what the season holds. Will weather conditions be more favourable for burning and might some estates feel they need to do more burning to catch up on lost burning days last year? Will the regulators get tough with non-compliant estates? Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to receiving your records and will report back at the end of the season.
Image: RSPB