A fascinating article by Rob Evans in The Guardian today apparently based on a Freedom of Information request by Guy Shrubsole of Friends of the Earth. The paper reports that the Moorland Association (MA) whose strapline is ‘Conservation at Work’ threatened the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) with legal action , presumably by way of judicial review, over plans to introduce a compulsory ban on moorland burning. A quick look at the MA’s Who’s Who page suggests that its key folk seem to be those who own or manage or both own and manage, grouse moors for shooting. No surprise there then. Having spent two years trying to persuade landowners to end the practice of moorland burning voluntarily DEFRA was developing plans to ban it and was then met with multiple threats of legal action from MA officials. It is interesting to note that action of this sort has been reported by the Shooting Times as “childish eco-politics”when undertaken by the campaigning organisation Wild Justice.

DEFRA is apparently still planning to ban the practice of moorland burning. Zac Goldsmith, a junior environment minister, said on Twitter in January this year “one way or another this needs to stop”. Presumably having failed to get a voluntary ban DEFRA will be fast tracking their plans for a change in the law. Following the floods on land below this type of managed moorland as well of course as the releasing of climate-changing gases into the atmosphere, degradation of precious habitat, and the burning alive of many wild mammals urgent action is clearly needed.

Amanda Anderson, director of the MA is quoted as saying “In particular, we were deeply worried, and still are, about the potential environmental and conservation consequences of land being left without sustainable management alternatives.” This is a common claim from those who manage grouse moors for shooting but the truth is that the management of moorland for grouse shooting has at its core the production of more birds to shoot. The devastation that these practices can cause is simply denied or ignored.

The management of moorland for driven grouse shooting takes up huge swathes of the land mass of the UK but is the ‘sport’ a very, very small minority. How much longer will the few be allowed to devastate the environment in this way?