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NEWS UPDATES FOR THIS MONTH

WILDFIRES are now causing serious problems as the climate changes to make them more likely and more damaging. Unfortunately, just as the regulatory authorities should be encouraging land managers to reduce fuel loads by cutting and burning, they are doing the opposite by issuing obstructive, bureaucratic legislation aimed uselessly at the protection of peat deposits and the plants which form peat.   Confusion even reigns over what is classified as deep peat in need of protection, as it used to be 50cm depth but now is 40cm in Scotland and 30cm in England  !   What about the huge areas of shallower peat ? 400 acres of 10cm has the same amount of peat as 100 acres of 40cm. Surely if peat needs protecting it should be all of it, under a legal requirement of land management,  and be left to land managers who know their ground rather than relying on micro-management by officials using a one size fits all approach.

Peat protection legislation should also cover those areas which are “left to Nature” and then accumulate dangerously high fuel loads.