Blogs

Today marks the coming into effect of the new licences to make muirburn on non-peatland and peatland respectively. This means that, as of today, it is illegal to make muirburn in Scotland unless under a valid licence issued by NatureScot.

Our gamebird experts and policy teams are currently pulling together over 25 years of data and peer-reviewed, published evidence on the management of released gamebirds, in preparation for submitting a thorough response to this call for evidence.

The transition to regenerative agriculture is an opportunity for farmers to improve soil health, strengthen resilience and reduce reliance on costly inputs. But what does that transition actually cost, and who should bear the risk?

For 35 years the Allerton Project has been at the forefront of providing the evidence base upon which the modern agri-environmental scheme stands, and we strongly believe that a well-planned and executed scheme returns multiple benefits to the farm business:

Due to this summer’s extreme weather, cereals were harvested three weeks earlier than you would normally expect. This resulted in a yield loss of around 10% to 30% on most crops. 

Over the past two years, the kestrel monitoring project led by Dr Francis Buner set out to improve our understanding of the reasons behind the decline of the species.

As the leading independent, scientific, evidence-based organisation on gamebird management, the GWCT very much looks forward to engaging with Defra over the coming weeks as part of this call for evidence.

A BBC News report from last week rightly celebrates the good news that two broods of three Montagu’s harriers have successfully fledged at a “secret location” in the south of England.

There’s been a total of 16 significant wildfires in Wales covering a total of 10,662 hectares since early May. As I write this eight of these are showing up on real time satellite data as either still burning or have major hotspots indicating that the fire continues to smoulder underground in the peat. 

After a prolonged dry period, it is easy to forget that what is happening above ground is also affecting life beneath our feet.