Moorland in its natural state would provide greater biodiversity than it does currently - Yorkshire Post Letters

I have had occasion in the past to write about the uses of the uplands in our county, usually when prompted by articles from the shooting lobby. Adrian Blackmore, Director of the Campaign for Shooting at the Countryside Alliance (The YP 25/01/2023) writes defending the burning of moorland as part of protecting peatland.

Few would argue that we need to be protecting and restoring our remaining peatlands – peat stores carbon and provides some water retention in the uplands, and blanket bog in particular provides a unique environment.

However, moorland, maintained by burning or not, is not the natural climax vegetation of our uplands. Without human interference it would be a patchwork of open land, blanket bog, scrub and woodland.

In its natural state it would provide greater biodiversity than the current moorland, greater attractions to tourism enhancing employment and big reductions in run off, reducing flood risk in lower lying areas.

Mr Blackmore refers to a study by the University of York without identifying it. If I have tracked it down correctly this is the one found at Peatlands-ES-UK, a project initiated by Defra and with a second phase funded from a variety of sources, these include the Moorland Association set up to promote grouse shooting, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the Law Family Charitable Foundation, which supports a lot of valuable work, but which in 2021 gave a significant sum to the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (their website offer ‘Shoot Raffles’), and the Heather Trust, which offers ‘Sport Auctions’.

There is clearly a common thread here. We are not talking about peatland management, but about the maintenance of moorland in the interests of the tiny minority who shoot.

These landowners and ‘sportsmen’ have a significant say, through money and connections, in how our country is run, and this needs to be questioned.

To add to this theme, why are game bird chicks being imported from European areas with significant avian flu levels when the owners of domestic flocks have to keep them indoors?