Rewetting moors is adding to methane
THE debate between Professor
Bruce Webb and Anton Coaker (September 25 etc) is fascinating. On the one hand is a university academic who clearly has his finger on the pulse of new publications relating to climate change. On the other you have a highly experienced hill farmer, rooted in his place and sustained by centuries of a particular culture of livestock management.
It is good that Professor Webb says that methane (CH4) emissions ‘cannot be ignored’ as they are 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming over a 20-year period. He cites the huge numbers of domesticated beasts worldwide, but these include intensive and massive beef-rearing industries that have little relevance to Dartmoor where the management of livestock is extensive and small-scale.
These Dartmoor beasts have a hugely beneficial impact on our cultural and natural environment by grazing and maintaining the mosaic of grassland and short scrub vegetation. This enables access and reveals the extraordinary legacy of physical structures relating to human presence on Dartmoor over the past 5½ thousand years. For us as humans, this revelation and conservation of an encyclopedia of information and stories is, arguably, of as much importance to our collective well-being as is a healthy natural world. The two are inseparable on our south-western moors. Unless both elements are considered, any debate is imbalanced.
I hope Professor Webb will convey his message of damage caused by methane to those who persist in the so-called rewetting of Dartmoor’s peatlands. Even in the Mires on the Moors Science and Evidence Report (University of Exeter, 2020) there is recognition of ‘significantly increased’ methane emissions as a result of rewetting on both Exmoor and Dartmoor (pp 34-35, 40-41), with a somewhat vague hope that sphagnum growth will eventually ameliorate the negative effect.
Both Professor Webb and Anton Coaker are both right from their individual perspectives, but we need to focus on the distinctive character of the south-west before advocating over-simplistic solutions. It would be good to be told Professor Webb’s analysis of our specific southwestern situation regarding methane emissions.
Tom Greeves Penzance, Cornwall