Burning banned on England’s deep peat: comment

"Protecting and restoring England's peatlands is essential to reducing the flood risk that increasingly extreme rainfall from climate change is bringing to villages and towns downstream of upland areas. Homes will increasingly struggle to get affordable, or indeed any insurance, as these impacts will continually worsen until the world balances its climate by reaching net zero emissions.

"While licenced burning may be necessary in limited circumstances, its use should be carefully managed, given its impacts on water quality, air pollution and increased wildfire risk, and the associated costs for local communities.

"UK peatland stores over 3 billion tonnes of carbon, more than the forests of the UK, France and Germany combined and at the moment the poor state of our peatlands means this is leaking out, making climate change worse as well as threatening the homes of some of the UK’s rarest wildlife."

The Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 regulates for the instances in which controlled burning of peatland is allowed, through the granting of licences on specific grounds. Between 31 March and 25 May, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs ran a consultation on proposed changes to the Regulations.

The proposed changes sought to expand the protection of peatland under the Regulations through: increasing the total area of peatland protected; removing and amending the grounds on which a licence could be granted; requiring adherence to the forthcoming Heather and Grass Management Code; and requiring anyone intending to conduct a burning to undergo fire training.