Dr Pat Thompson, RSPB Senior Conservation Officer, compared burning peat in England as “our equivalent of burning the rainforest.”(Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)In January, the Government announced a strategy to clamp down on burning peat in England, outlining plans to ban it at legally-protected sites or deep peat bogs. Hebden Bridge, in West Yorkshire, which has been flooded six times in five years, is downstream from several grouse moors. There were more than 550 incidents of grouse moor burning recorded in Yorkshire alone last burning season. The North York Moors National Park is the largest expanse of grouse moors in England (108,726 acres) will be exempt from the new burning legislation. "Patchwork burning also favours many ground nesting birds – such as the golden plover - that continue to thrive on grouse moors but are in steep decline elsewhere.

Source: Daily Mirror March 30, 2021 14:46 UTC