For peat's sake

As we shiver through winter it's cheering to look forward to the glories of high summer, starting from flower-filled hay meadows and ending with miles of purple heather stretching to a distant horizon. But the owners of some of Yorkshire's premier moors fear that the vistas that provide the season's spectacular final flourish – and attract millions of visitors each year – are in danger. They say the threat is coming from the very Government agency charged with protecting the environment.

Natural England is drawing up a blueprint for the way all the country's uplands should be managed over the next 50 years and it wants to see moorland in particular working harder. The agency says that as well as being beautiful to look at, the moors also have a key role to play in food and timber production, preventing urban homes being flooded and helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. One of the ways in which this could be achieved, it argues, is by more than doubling the tree cover in the uplands, pushing it up from the present 10 per cent to about 25 per cent. Another is by restricting gamekeepers' burning of heather. Natural England calculates that there is more carbon trapped in moorland peat than in all the forests of England and France combined and that, if fully restored, the moors could soak up 400,000 tonnes of carbon a year, the equivalent of the emissions of 84,000 family cars.

But moorland owners see it differently. They argue burning is a key part of managing the moors for grouse shooting, an activity which forms a crucial element of the rural economy as well as in maintaining the colourful heather that gives such a fillip to the tourism industry.

Traditionally, gamekeepers burn away patches of old heather to stimulate fresh growth and create the patchwork of different aged plants upon which grouse and other wildlife rely. The birds need a mixture of young shoots on which to feed and older, taller heather to give cover from predators.

The Moorland Association, representing most of the major landowners as well as many smaller ones, says that without this regime the heather would grow woody, making it not only less nutritious for grouse, sheep and cattle but also creating a serious risk from uncontrolled wildfires and arson.

Gamekeepers are careful to burn off only the top layer of heather, leaving seeds in the underlying peat to germinate quickly. An uncontrolled wildfire strips vegetation completely and often burns deep into the peat destroying the seeds. The effect is disastrous, with the moor taking many years to regenerate. To hammer home its case, the association points to moors where it says heather management has been run down or abandoned altogether in recent years and the consequences that have followed. One of them is Bridestones Moor in the North York Moors National Park, a popular visitor's destination because of its rock formations. Here walkers must now struggle through tick-infested bracken and degenerate heather. Once-open views are being blotted out by scrub trees. The other example is Stony Marl Moor, south of Whitby, where management by controlled burning or grazing ended many years ago. This area now requires "scrub control" as part of a new agri-environment scheme which has to be paid for by the taxpayer.

The association is already claiming an early victory over what it describes as a partial retreat when Natural England launched its Upland Vision in Ilkley at the end of last year. But it still fears the plan would damage not only grouse but also threatened waders and the merlin, our smallest bird of prey.

The association's secretary, Martin Gillibrand, said: "The Upland Vision that emerged at Ilkley is better than the first draft, but it still does not represent a vision that's acceptable to us in its totality. They have a lot of power and this is an attempt to push for things which are fundamentally ill-conceived.

"Ultimately it would ruin areas that already have the highest possible environmental designation. We have something that is already extraordinarily good and extraordinarily valued. It seems silly to go for places that are already highly valued. We find it hard to understand their wish to change it and we don't think they have the powers to do so," he said. Almost all of England's uplands are in private hands and both sides know Natural England has little formal power to compel owners to do anything. But the owners, and particularly farmers, are often heavily dependent on agricultural and-environmental grants which Natural England is in a strong position to influence, starting new schemes or ending old ones to re-direct money to

the initiatives it supports.

Peter Welsh, the agency's North Yorkshire area manager insisted it was eager to work with landowners and encourage them to plan ahead for 40 or 50 years, during which the country would face serious challenges from changes not only to climate but to economic systems too. It was important that over that period the land played its part in helping to cope with the effects of change on food and timber production as well as flood and climate control. Moorland, where peat was sometimes up to five metres thick, held a vast amount of carbon locked in the soil but this could be released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide if the peat was exposed to oxygen or washed away into rivers. To help to prevent this it wanted to see increased vegetation, including trees, locking the peat into place. In the past, vegetation coverage had been damaged by fires, over-grazing by too many sheep – itself encouraged by grants – erosion by water and, especially in the Pennines, by industrial pollution blowing in from the Lancashire conurbations.

In the Peak District large areas of peat were decomposing after being exposed. Previous governments' policy to drain moorland by paying owners to dig a 30,000km network of drainage ditches had also played a part and it would be necessary to block them to raise water levels in upland blanket bogs. This, together with increased tree-planting and the natural spread of scrub species, would also help to retain peat.

"Changes are coming," says Mr Welsh. "So it is timely to talk about using the uplands for the benefit of the country. A lot of good things are already being done but we will be better prepared economically and environmentally if we look at the new opportunities."

He said Natural England believed the country was facing a period of drier summers and wetter winters and the proposed changes could help the country to cope better with both the restored moorland soaking up more rain water during wet periods and then releasing it more slowly, helping to control flooding in winter and improve water supply via the rivers in summer.

"We would expect to see more plantations, but a lot of people enjoy Dalby and Sproxton forests. In the end we need more variety in the uplands to allow them to be more resilient. We think that what we are suggesting can generally be very positive.

"Some elements may change slightly or even significantly but we think the reality for people who live and work in the area will be better," he said.