Benefits of ban on burning

REGARDING letters on the ‘controlled burning of moorland’. As ever, there are two sides to every argument.

Is it true that Australia’s wildfires happened as a result of the lack of controlled burning? There is plausible evidence that record-breaking temperatures combined with several years of severe drought, consistent with global warming, have meant that such controlled burning has been neither a safe nor viable option, leaving a tinderbox poised for ignition. Rarely, if ever, will such a severe situation be replicated on Yorkshire’s somewhat chillier moorlands.

Our much-loved heather moorlands are, of course, a purely man-made environment, kept that way largely as a monoculture for lucrative driven grouse shooting. Controlled burning may temporarily reduce the fuel load, but arguably with different management, could rapidly develop into a far less flammable expanse, irrespective of periods of drought.

The claim of burning being ‘a huge benefit to birdlife’ needs evidence. Which birds other than grouse? Certainly not shot, trapped or poisoned raptors. North Yorkshire has the worst record nationwide for the illegal persecution of these protected birds.

Peat moorland is critical for climate change mitigation through carbon storage, effectively holding back rainfall to ‘slow the flow’, both reducing speed and volume of runoff and therefore downstream flood risk, while also reducing drought risks. Comprehensive, peer reviewed, academic studies of moorland burning have proved a raft of detremental effects on peat hydrology, peat chemistry and physical properties, river water chemistry and river ecology. These independent academics are not ‘so-called green campaigners’ and their hard evidence indicates that a ban on prescribed burning would have numerous clear benefits.