Over the last few years the RSPB has been asking the public to report sightings of muirburn on grouse moors throughout the UK.
Muirburn is the intentional burning of heather and grass vegetation (usually to promote new growth) and is a land management practice typically associated with managing land for grouse-shooting, deer, and some agricultural purposes. It is currently ‘lightly regulated’ with some outdated statutory regulations supported by a voluntary code of best practice – the Muirburn Code.
The RSPB has developed an App to collect and report your sightings on the move, or you can report on this website when you get home.
This mapping information is crucial for the RSPB’s advocacy team to ensure that muirburn on deep peatland soils is banned.
The burning season runs to April 15th in England (and can be extended to April 30th in Scotland with landowner’s permission) so if you’re out and about enjoying the fine Easter weather, please keep an eye out and take a note of any moorland fires you see, or evidence of recent burning.
You can view the burning maps already produced by the RSPB here.
Deliberately setting fire to peat-rich moorland, in the midst of a climate emergency, is highly controversial (some would argue moronic), especially when it’s being done simply to help increase the number of red grouse available to be shot in the autumn. A recently published report commissioned by REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform, entitled Muirburning for Grouse: Does it Increase or Decrease Net Carbon Emissions provides an excellent appraisal of the arguments and evidence. There’s also an excellent overview of the situation written by Dr Richard Dixon, the former Director of both Friends of the Earth Scotland and WWF Scotland, here.
The Scottish Government’s Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill includes proposals to ban burning on deep peat (exact definition of ‘deep’ to be defined but currently proposed as 40cm) and to licence all other muirburn, thus restricting its use in some circumstances.
In response, the grouse-shooting industry has gone into meltdown (pun intended) in a desperate bid to protect its ability to set fire to grouse moors (because without it, the days of intensively-managed grouse moors are numbered). The industry has been heavily promoting some preliminary research results by Dr Andreas Heinemeyer from the University of York whose report suggests that burning may be beneficial and enhance carbon storage in the longer term. The RSPB has published a strong response urging caution over the interpretation of these results – see here.
In England, an investigation by Greenpeace last year revealed widespread burning on grouse moors despite a Westminster ban against burning on protected peatlands (see here).
As the arguments, and the fires, and the denials, rage on, it’s critical that evidence of intentionally-set moorland fires is collected to inform Government policy on both sides of the border. Please do submit your records to the RSPB (information page here) to help them argue the case.
Raptor Persecution UK 
One rather random thought occurred to me. I remember reading, years ago, of nitrogen added to moorland soils, perhaps from industrial pollution. I wonder what may also have been added, such as lead and zinc from Pennine mine working and smelting, going back to Victorian times and earlier: and from coal burning in towns and cities to E & W. So there may be a reservoir of pollutants in Pennine peat, ready for release by careless burning.
I do hope I’m wrong. I wonder whether anyone has looked.
If it wasn’t for the burning of these moorlands these visitor’s wouldn’t see the wildlife they see today
Thats true, they would see a much more structurly diverse habitat which supports the all species they see today along with a greater diversity of species. So much to look forward to.
True enough, but that’s also the problem. People would also like to see some of the range of species that occurs when some variation in habitat is permitted / encouraged / nurtured by “the landowner”. Across the Pennine chain (as an example) there is ample room for examples of “a bit of everything” to be managed-in at a landscape level, and also for individual moors with a focus on grouse to still do their bit and nurture some different habitats at a local level. And focussing on heather moors – which are almost always “grouse moors” in the current status quo – it would be nice to enjoy seeing the birds and animals that ought to be there but aren’t (or are there only fleetingly) because they get bumped off. As much as I am genuinely charmed by the character and habits of red grouse, and I do like ling heather – there is no doubt that far too much of our uplands are devoted exclusively to them.
Please do enlighten me as to the wildlife they wouldn’t see if the moorlands weren’t burnt?
Two recent moors I have seen that pass along side roads have more variety of flora, not just heather, on the verges than on the managed moor e.g small conifers, gorse, birch. Therefore if there is a diversity of flora then it goes without say that there will be a diversity of fauna from the invertebrates upwards, as each will have feed on those below them in the food chain.
It is called biodiversity, not the heather monoculture promoted by shooting estates. To be sure there are a few Curlews etc that are tolerated because they are not a threat to grouse production. As my wife, the granddaughter of an upland shepherd, commented today that when she was young you would hear Curlew all the time at his upland cottage. Now the grouse moors are even more intensively managed there is even less Curlew.
So you’re right, as result of the burning of the moors, we see even less wildlife. One moor I was on all you could hear was grouse. Fortunately soom estates are no so exclusive but many are!
After many years walking the hills of Aberdeenshire and the Angus hills, observing their plants butterflies and birds, I can safely say you are absolutely correct, Wayne. The pitiful remnants of an ecosystem we see today are very much the legacy of muirburn and associated activities that strive to maintain high levels of red grouse (and sheep) at the expense of almost everything else that should be there.
It would be an astonishing failure of policy if a 100ha block of active blanket bog, supporting a full range of micro-topography and a range of sphagnum species was burnt to death simply because it was 39.5cm deep.
They need to get better criteria.
Not sure if the problem is my end but the links to the ‘burning’ app and website don’t work.
[Ed: All working fine at this end. You can probably find the RSPB burning page via Google if you can’t access the links]