By Henrietta Appleton, GWCT Policy Officer
In August this year GWCT chief executive Teresa Dent wrote a letter to Greenpeace’s Interim Executive Director in response to its petition calling for a complete ban on controlled burning in the uplands.
We received a reply outlining Greenpeace’s position, which despite our presentation of evidence to the contrary, reiterates the viewpoint that the “weight of scientific evidence shows heather burning, in particular, is damaging to English peatlands,” and, significantly, omits to mention the important role controlled burns can play in wildfire mitigation. This is in spite of the fact that wildfires are no longer exceptional occurrences, breaking out with increased regularity and intensity.
A re-appraisal is urgently needed of the value of using fire to fight fire both in terms of the risk wildfire poses the health of populations living in the vicinity and the threat to life of those charged with tackling these most difficult blazes.
In its reply Greenpeace cites the IUCN (amongst others) as evidence of their view that burning on peatland is damaging, quoting from the IUCN’s “Position Statement: Burning and Peatlands”. However, the key statements in this document have been extensively discussed by Ashby and Heinemeyer in their critical review, which found the position statement “unverified” and “misleading” in presenting heather burning as a “wholly damaging peatland management tool” .
This reinforces the need for an update to the current evidence on upland management that we suggested in our initial letter. In addition, arguments on the negative impacts of controlled burning are largely based on Natural England’s Upland Evidence Review from 2013 and the IUCN’s Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands from 2011. Since these reports there has been new evidence, reviewed in the Trust’s Peatland Report 2020 and recent Sustaining Ecosystems - English Grouse Moors, that challenges what some refer to as the “scientific consensus”.
It is difficult to understand why the role of controlled (and/or prescribed) burning of vegetation is not valued for its contribution to wildfire prevention as it is a cultural practice afforded high value in other historically wildfire prone ecosystems. Why should we not use the proven benefits of prescribed burning to reduce fuel loads (biomass) in a Californian boreal ecosystem, as a good argument to use it for our fire-prone uplands ecosystems?
Indeed, overseas evidence was employed in a special report on wildfire for the Climate Change Committee. The fact is that our changing climate is creating the ideal conditions for wildfire (increased vegetative growth in warmer, wetter winters and then hotter, drier summers) and as a result the current emphasis on fire suppression (i.e. extinguishing a fire not preventing it) is no longer sufficient.
The IUCN UK Peatland Programme’s position statement on wildfire starts by suggesting a distinction between habitat types given that “concerns over wildfire risk does not generally apply to wet blanket bog habitat”. But we feel this fails to consider evidence of summer drying of deep peat.
Evidence shows that deep peat in England dries out to a depth of 20-30cm in summer; so deep peat, even if wet in winter, is not immune from wildfire in both the surface vegetation and peat. Even, it seems in higher rainfall areas, as the extensive 2019 wildfire in the Flow Country, including over 52.1 km2 of blanket bog, demonstrates.
Indeed, the heat generated by a wildfire may itself dry out nearby peat and facilitate ignition. In addition, the cessation of vegetation management, which often accompanies a “rewetting” programme, results in an increase in the available fuel load leading to a more intense wildfire should one ignite.
Given the IUCN attributes the increased risk of wildfire in peatlands to their degraded condition their view is that “rewetting peatlands is [..] crucial in mitigating wildfire risk”. Clearly rewetting is vital to restoring our drained peatlands but significantly this approach has never been tested as a means of mitigating wildfire in the UK context.
In fact, the idea that controlled or prescribed burning only damages peatlands is questioned in the conclusion of the evidenced-based expert report for the Climate Change Committees’ Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3). This report states that “.. the use of fire can serve as a genuine fuel management tool beyond its much-debated use on grouse estates and must be considered part of the toolbox in the management [of] fire risk”. It is encouraging that this evidence-led approach to wildfire policy and good practice is reiterated in the CCRA3 technical report:
“Prescribed burning of moorland has for a long time been used as a traditional management practice. Important differences regarding biodiversity and ecosystem services can occur due to differences in intensity between shallow and deeper burns and on diverse habitats (including peatland), which highlight the importance of good practice. With regard to risk reduction, it is therefore crucial that good practice is further adapted to be consistent with the changing risk from climate change, as informed by further research and knowledge exchange.” A
Calls for a ban on heather burning are often claimed to be based on the precautionary principle , but it is arguably equally precautionary to continue long established fuel management practices such as controlled burning while further research is undertaken to assess the risk of stopping them. Moreover, we need to take due precaution on behalf of those who fight the wildfires as well as the large populations who live in the vicinity and whose health is damaged by the resulting air pollution.
However, in their position statement the IUCN also “recognises that there is a need to investigate the most effective mechanisms for wildfire risk mitigation to support the development of management plans for restoration projects during transition periods”. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.
References
1. Ashby & Heinemeyer (2021) A Critical Review of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme’s “Burning and Peatlands” Position Statement Wetlands 41: 56 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01400-1
2. Belcher et al., (2021) UK wildfires and their climate challenges. Expert Led Report Prepared for the third Climate Change Risk Assessment
3. Labadz, JC et al.(2007) Peatland hydrology research project: Bolton fell Moss (NGR NY489690) and Walton Moss (NGR NY489690): Progress report to Natural England. Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham; Holden, J et al. (2011) Water table dynamics in undisturbed, drained and restored blanket peat. Journal of Hydrology 402:103–114
4. Belcher et al., (2021) UK wildfires and their climate challenges. Expert Led Report Prepared for the third Climate Change Risk Assessment
5. Draft Policy statement defines the Precautionary Principle as ‘where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, a lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation’.
A. Berry, P. and Brown, I. (2021) National environment and assets. In: The Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Technical Report [Betts, R.A., Haward, A.B. and Pearson, K.V. (eds.)]. Prepared for the Climate Change Committee.