A deep peat burning ban is coming into force attendees of Saturday’s ACE Green Café meeting in Settle learnt. The meeting heard that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will ban the burning on England’s deep peat so as to restore habitats for rare wildlife and reduce air pollution and flooding.
England’s peatlands are in poor shape due to having been burned, intensively drained and used as grouse moors. The Government’s news release announcing the ban on Tuesday (9th) stated that “Peatlands improve water and air quality, create habitats for wildlife, absorb carbon and help protect communities from flooding. To deliver these benefits, they must be in a healthy condition but 80% of peatlands across England are dried out and deteriorating and actually emit carbon dioxide contributing to global warming”.
The action follows the previous Conservative government which brought in rules to ban the burning of some peatland areas. But some experts argued the rules left precious habitats and carbon sinks vulnerable to destruction and left many areas of deep peat unprotected. The new rules which come into force from 30 September, expands protection to all deep peat in the uplands, and redefines deep peat from the current 40cm to 30cm depth, and will cover 676,628 hectares of deep peat – up from the current 222,000 hectares.
Beccy Speight, RSPB chief executive said: “Extending the ban on burning over peat in the English uplands is a hugely positive step forwards towards protecting these precious habitats and reducing carbon emissions. Burning them is bad for nature, for the climate, for
water quality and for managing flood risk.”
However, the extension has been criticised as “reckless, naive, dangerous and self- defeating” by Kevin Hollinrake, chair of the Conservative Party and MP for Thirsk and Malton, whose constituency covers vast areas of the carbon-storing material.
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In support of this deep peat burning ban, the Environment Minister, Mary Creagh, said: “Our peatlands are England’s Amazon rainforest – home to our most precious wildlife, storing carbon and reducing flooding downstream. Burning on peatland releases harmful smoke ruining local air quality and damaging the precious ecosystems found in these iconic landscapes. Restricting burning will help us restore and rewet peatlands. These new measures will create resilient peatlands that are naturally protected from wildfires.
The extension comes following a public consultation on measures and will be enforced by Defra.