Scottish Land and Estates, the representative organisation of 2,500 landowners across Scotland, says landowners are being ‘blamed unfairly’ for the outbreak of wildfires that have occured across huge swathes of the Highlands this week.
According to Luke Borwick, chairman of SLE, “Some of these fires have been as a result of careless activity by recreational access takers. However, a significant number of fires have clearly been the result of irresponsible actions of other land users burning and not following the Muirburn Code“.
Amazing. The SLE statement in full here.
Meanwhile, the RSPB is deeply concerned about the effect of the fires on moorland-nesting birds, and particularly on golden eagles.
James Reynolds of the RSPB said: “It is absolutely certain that we will have lost a number of golden eagle nests. How many we don’t know but for a population that small, even the loss of one nest is serious“. Full details on BBC news here.
Marvellous. Welcome to the Year of Natural Scotland.
Raptor Persecution UK 
They would say that wouldn’t they, but then we know better don’t we !!!
“Some of these fires etc…” Would be nice to know how many were result of grouse muirburn, how many were sheepwalk and how many were [proved] “recreational access takers” wouldnt it?..Will any of those stats be made public?. Were any of these Recreational Access Takers [a new term to me…we dont “take” access to land in Scotland, we “have” access as an ancient right and now a modern legal one.Also see the initials RAT!!]…or are we in the same situation as 2001 when the first kneejerk NFU reaction to Foot and Mouth was to blame its spread on “walkers”. A lie which has never been apologised for…
Its always someone else, I bet its the same people who put out poisoned baits and illegal snares whilst they’re walking across the land aswell, funny how they always choose to do it on Grouse moors,
On the west coast, grouse are not as significant an interest…..it tends to be sheep farmers who often still subscribe to the “just chuck a match” method of muirburn. They see the flush of new blow grass as being a good thing….the sheep can eat it…for about 4 weeks (then it becomes useless). It also leads to the direct loss of heather cover which nobody benefits from at all……but it is a tradition.
Have the Scottish Government EVER taken action against any landowner for breaking the muirburn code?
On a recent drive up the A9 its easy to see many examples of “well controlled burning” on blanket bog and up into scree slopes areas which should not be burnt. The fact that the patch sizes have been well contained clearly indicates that they had enough stff to control the fire…so the fact that areas which should have been avoided have been burnt is a clear breach of the code.
Wildfire? Why is it not arson? – last I heard arson is a serious criminal offence. The term ‘wildfire’ just lets the irresponsible off the hook, so let’s call a spade a spade – ARSON!