Labour's rewilding plans risk surge in wildfires

Telegraph

19 hours ago

Labour's rewilding plans risk sparking a surge in wildfires across Britain, gamekeepers have warned.
The Government is proposing to ban winter burning – a traditional upland management technique that reduces the amount of fuel for potential fires – from more than half of all peatland in England.
It is claimed the changes will help to 're-wet' Britain's peat bogs, reduce the risk of wildfires and cut carbon emissions.
Environmentalists want to preserve peat bogs because they soak up vasts quantities of carbon. But landowners and gamekeepers have warned that, far from protecting the environment, the burning restrictions will instead leave Britain's moors and heaths at the mercy of wildfires that will be 'too large to fight'.
Winter burns create firebreaks in upland areas by forming strips where there is less flammable foliage, thereby limiting the speed at which wildfires can spread.
But in 2021, the burns were banned from areas of 'deep peat' – where it extends for 40cm or deeper – in conservation areas, totalling 222,000 hectares of land.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is now consulting on plans to extend the burning restrictions to 368,000 hectares of peat by lowering the threshold for 'deep peat' to 30cm.
The department argues that wetter peat will reduce the chance of wildfires. But gamekeepers have warned the changes would leave swathes of the countryside vulnerable.
Richard Bailey, a gamekeeper and co-ordinator of the Peak District Moorland Group, told The Telegraph the plans risked turning upland areas into a 'massive tinderbox'.
Andrew Gilruth, chief executive of the Moorland Association, said: 'This is our worst ever year for wildfires. Britain is burning because of the religion of rewilding.
'It is obvious to everyone bar Natural England that, with climate change making vegetation tinder-dry, increasing this fuel load through rewilding is a really stupid idea. It make for bigger, more intense blazes which can move at frightening speed.'
'I think the whole thing is very concerning – not just from a loss-of-habitat point of view, but also putting firefighters and land managers in real danger from the inevitable wildfires.
'The whole thing is becoming a massive tinderbox and a bomb that is going off. At the moment, re-wetting is increasing the fuel level on the moors and that is a real concern. Prescribed burning will not stop wildfires, but it reduces the length of flames and allows fires to be contained quicker.'
Other proposed changes would remove an exemption to the restrictions that allowed burns to continue on land 'inaccessible' to mowing and cutting equipment, either because it was too steep or too rocky.
Proposals reveal 'staggering lack of knowledge'
Defra said in its consultation that burns should be a 'last resort', despite G7 leaders having backed 'controlled burning' as a means of preventing wildfires in June.
Donald Trump also issued an executive order that month reducing restrictions on 'prescribed fires' for 'common-sense wildfire prevention'.
Adrian Blackmore, the director of shooting at the Countryside Alliance, said Defra's plans to restrict burns – which remove the top layer of heather without damaging the roots or peat underneath – were 'staggering'.
'They are showing a staggering lack of understanding or knowledge,' he said. 'Burns reduce the fire load, encourage young growth for the birds to eat and encourage the growth of sphagnum moss, which is the peat-forming moss.
'So if you don't remove the canopy, you can't encourage sphagnum moss, because it's not going to grow underneath it. And sphagnum moss is the be-all and end-all, making moors wetter.'
In recent years, there has been a series of large wildfires in upland areas where winter burns were restricted – including the Saddleworth Moor blaze in 2018, where wildfires had been limited to once every two decades.
This summer, large wildfires have broken out on Langdale Moor, in North Yorkshire, and Marsden Moor, in West Yorkshire. Scotland's largest ever wildfires have also taken place in the Cairngorms.
Gamekeepers in Scotland have warned that they will no longer help to put out moorland wildfires if restrictions on peat burns are introduced. From January next year, gamekeepers would have to measure the depth of the peat before applying for licences to conduct 'muirburns'.
Craig Hepburn, a member of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association's youth committee, said: 'As people, it goes against the grain for us to turn our backs on anyone but, if Government is going to tie us in knots when we are trying to help, why should folk keep putting their lives at risk?'
A spokesman for Defra said: 'Our peatlands are home to Britain's most precious wildlife, while also storing carbon and reducing flooding risk.
'With 13 per cent of the world's blanket bog in the UK, we've consulted on ways to ensure these rare habitats are better protected. We will set out our response in due course.'
John Clarke, of the National Gamekeepers' Association, said the Defra plans would 'spell disaster'.
'Many areas of the uplands are inaccessible by tractors and other vehicles, meaning that cutting or mowing of vegetation is nigh-on impossible, and controlled burning is the only option,' he said.
'This summer we have experienced a large number of wildfires up and down the country; this year so far has in fact seen the most wildfires on record. These wildfires come at a huge cost not only to our ground nesting red listed birds, but also to the public purse.
'The notion of increasing the restrictions on where burning can take place will spell disaster and will only increase incidents of wildfire in the future.'