Muirburn and The Climate Emergency

I S I T T I M E TO B A N M U I R B U R N ?
Time to ban muirburn in Scotland because of the Climate Emergency? Time to think again!
Gamekeepers are calling on Scottish Government to protect the practice of muirburn and acknowledge its role in preventing wildfires and protecting carbon stores. See here Scotland’s Regional Moorland Groups latest film:
“ Muirburn & the Climate Emergency” produced by @Kirk Norbury Photographer & Filmmaker
PLEASE SHARE FAR AND WIDE TO HELP US GET THIS MESSAGE ACROSS

[@eddixon850]

Wildfire and Muirburn are completely separate things and banning Muirburn will make wildfires larger, more frequent and worse.

[@jamamafegan4]

I find it absolutely astonishing that anybody would suggest that burning vegetation is a useful tool for tackling the climate emergency. This is despite the fact that ecosystems have existed and thrived for hundreds and thousands of years without muirburn. Suddenly, we need muirburn - why is that? I think this is another attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the general public, an attempt to give driven grouse shooting a reason to exist. Only 4% of Scotland is covered in native woodland. Trees which contribute to the water cycle and remove CO2 from the atmosphere are lacking. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet. And here we have the shooting lobby telling us we need to keep rotational burning to help save the planet? You’re having an absolute laugh.

[@monkeynuts179]

I think you are missing the point the film was trying to make (admittedly badly). A wild fire is much more likely in unman aged moorland. Wildfire as in the example given in the film doubled Scotland CO2 emissions for that year. So yes muirburn can be an effective tool against wild fires and in that context an effective tool not tackling the climate emergency but helping prevent adding preventable CO2 emissions. As for the forest, by the time the Roman legions invaded Scotland in AD 82, at least half of our natural woodland had gone. Much of it was replaced by peatland, partly as a result of the cooler, wetter climate and partly because of human activities on the low ground, Scotlands forests (generalizing) arnt meant to be on the high moorland but on the low ground where our farms and cities are. By the very nature and primal reason of muirburning the environment on managed hills produces higher populations of wildlife, because that is what miurburning is for, to maximise the population for hunting.

[@SimonDures]

Interesting film. Definitely will be reading that paper but fantastic to see this shirt film interpreting scientific findings. I guess since most of Scotland’s landscape has been managed so intensively for so long it has lost the ecological resilience it would previously have had from tree cover

[@petermoss1183]

Interesting film, who is the narrator?