What would you have liked to have asked? Wuthering Moors 44

This interview with the Chief Executive of Natural England is interesting in a way. It illustrates the tensions of pleasing one’s current political masters and living up to the mission that NE has had handed down by Parliament.  Which direction to face? What would you have liked to hear him say? Here are some questions…

Wuthering Moors 43

This is the fourth blog today on the subject of burning of blanket bog (see here, here, and here).  These were sparked (!) by the RSPB releasing data on the scale of the issue and calling for an end to the burning of blanket bog.  There has been a little media coverage of this –…

Wuthering Moors 42

The scale of burning of English blanket bogs revealed by the latest RSPB work is scary. There are 127 separate consents (mostly through HLS agreements – ie we taxpayers are paying for it too) for burning on blanket bogs. These affect these seven  Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)(Border Mires, Kielder-Butterburn; Ingleborough Complex; Moor House –…

Wuthering Moors 41

Following my blog ‘first’ thing this morning here is some more information on the damage that burning does to blanket bogs. Martin Harper’s blog today expands on the RSPB’s thinking about burning of blanket bog. More details of the RSPB’s complaint to the EU over the management (they clearly regard it as mis-management, as did…

Burn, maybe burn (aka Wuthering Moors 40)

The RSPB is getting stroppy about burning of blanket bogs – I like that. Burning heather on a rotation of 7-20 years is part of the industrialisation of the upland landscape of parts of the UK.  The main reason for doing it is to produce totally unnaturally high densities of Red Grouse which can then…