Burning moorland to keep it moorland is clearly not good for the environment. Leaving it to grow naturally, eventually becoming trees would obviously be a benefit in terms of producing oxygen and capturing carbon, but also in terms of absorbing potential floodwaters preventing flooding of towns downstream.
Now, I'm no ecowarrior and I've got no desire to reverse urbanisation or anything like that, I just think burning moorland is increasingly destructive and nonsensical, especially above valleys that flood frequently and where trees could solve that issue, with benefits for wildlife too. I'd also be against re-introducing any dangerous animals. I could see this working well and making sense in many Pennine areas and it is fairly cheap to do as you don't really have to do anything to achieve it, probably much cheaper and less destructive than building flood defences.
Do forum members have any opinions on this subject?
Great idea for a thread !
I'm involved with various rewilding initiatives. So, unsurprisingly, my view is that we need more rewilding, and quickly.
But rewilding isn't only about managing the uplands, as important as that is. There are rewilding initiatives all over the place. Probably the most famous of all schemes is on the Knepp estate in Surrey, but there are plenty of other projects in lowland and coastal areas in Somerset, Dorset, The Fens, etc.
There are also marine re-wilding projects, focusing on re-establishing seagrass meadows or oyster beds.
In terms of the uplands, Scotland is leading the way, with large scale schemes such as Cairngorms Connect, and the NTS scheme at Mar Lodge. There's also various community-led projects, such as Carrifran and Tarras Valley near Moffat in the Southern Uplands. The latter recently bought another 5,000 acres (doubling their acreage), which I am glad to say I contributed to.
In England, the most advanced large-scale scheme in an upland area is probably Wild Ennerdale, which is a Forest England/National Trust/United Utilites collaboration. There's also a great project at Haweswater led by the RSPB.
Here in Wales, sadly, rewilding has become a dirty word, mainly thanks to the ceaseless propaganda activities of the two farmers' unions. So we are some way behind the other countries in terms of what has been achieved so far.
