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Embarrassing questions for @Natures_Voice & @GreenpeaceUK. Presumably this story has been released because they failed to find evidence 4 a case? A few sensational claims & BBC are happy to run it @BBCJustinR @BBC_HaveYourSay @BeccyRSPB @NaturalEngland 🧵
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61607510
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61607510
The law allows anyone to walk etc across open access land but for this type of work you need consent from the landowner. Did the BBC, RSPB or Greenpeace ask for that? Did they get it or was that just inconvenient? Imagine breaking this law like this on a nature reserve?
Why are the BBC, RSPB and Greenpeace saying they were walking across areas of burnt vegetation to avoid distrubing wildlife? You do know that golden plover are often found nesting on recently burned areas? Presumably the RSPB at least know this? And in nesting season? Seriously?
The burnt areas at Bowes... how old are these burn sites please? They are not ones that pre-date the rule change are they by any chance? Why was this story rushed out before waiting for Natural England to analyse the claim? Were you concerned you might be quite wrong?
If you burn vegetation (an ancient management tool still used and promoted by conservationists around the world) it will initially release carbon but over time can lock up more. Dr. Andreas Heinemeyer (York) report: burning is not 'damaging'. RSPB know this work? but ignore it?
The burnt heather 'biochar' locks up carbon. Biochar - an area poorly understood but Prof Colin Snape (Nottingham) is part-burning hundreds of tonnes of virgin timber to lock carbon up and get it into the ground. Odd that the RSPB & Greenpeace forgot to mention this to the BBC.
80% of the UK peatlands are damaged but RSPB & Greenpeace forgot to mention that the vast majority of this % is on lowland farms. They still plough the peat to grow lovely straight carrots etc. This statistic is highly misleading without context.
Did either the RSPB or Greenpeace mention to the BBC that peatland 'damage' is based on a visual assessment of the surface vegetation? Did either of them mention that it was 150 years of historic atmospheric pollution that damaged the vegetation cover on these moors?
Did the RSPB & Greenpeace allow BBC to assume it was heather burning which had damaged these moors? Why is the devastation from atmospheric pollution not even listed as one of the damaging factors listed by the BBC? Was the BBC mislead? BBC could have checked all this on Google?
Its odd that the environmental groups were so silent in the past whilst our upland moor vegetation was being destroyed by industrial atmospheric pollution. Is this why it is rarely mentioned now? Those that manage these moors have not forgotten those silent years.
UK peatland is releasing about 3.7M tonnes of carbon a year but of that 2.3% of this is coming from English grouse moors (there is also a lower estimate of 0.98%). Most carbon is coming from lowland farms growing food crops for us to eat. Did RSPB or Greenpeace share this?
The IUCN have said that these carbon emissions from peatlands are likely to increase further with climate change. Its rather odd that neither the RSPB nor Greenpeace thought to mention how they wish to tackle the 97% not coming from grouse moors in England.
If the UK is to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 it will need to make sure none of the millions of tonnes of carbon stored in peat is lost overnight in a wildfire (or idiot fires as they should be called). Reducing fuel load of the surface vegetation is a key mitigation tool
Around the globe controlled winter burning (as has been used in the UK for 5,000 years) is also a tool for reducing wildfire risk. It is even Green Party policy in Australia. In this country we need to wake up. Climate change is increasing that wildfire risk each year.
Rather that retain a wildfire mitigation tool the RSPB & Greenpeace are campaigning to have it banned altogether. How mad is that? Are they going to take responsibility when it all goes wrong? (as it has in other countries). Are they going to pay the restoration bills?
The irony is that campaigning groups such as the RSPB & Greenpeace profit from failure. When new policies go wrong (which is regularly in the uplands) they can campaign a second time & demand huge sums of funding to 'restore' previous errors. How about looking after what we have?
It's time to stop treating our uplands as a policy playground. So far we have told and paid moorland managers to dig ditches to drain them for livestock grazing. They paid them to fill them back in. Paid them to plant trees then paid to remove the trees, now plant again.
These managers were paid to lime the heather to kill it for livestock. Now they restore it. More sheep, now less sheep. All of these things have happened in living memory. How about listening to the people that work on the moors before pretending that you know everything?
The one helpful thing this report highlights is the inaccuracy of peat depth mapping. Must have been frustrating for RSPB & Greenpeace to discover that the rules were being followed. Imagine having to mange these moors with regulators using such inaccurate mapping?
Our uplands & the communities that look after them deserve better that the stream of 'solutions' being offered by those taking no responsibility. We still have the gems we have today because of the way they have been looked after for generations. Perhaps we might reflect on that.
