Moorland Association welcomes Natural England shift on wildfire

The Moorland Association (MA) has welcomed what it calls a significant shift in Natural England’s public position on wildfire, after the regulator’s regional director Ruth Waters acknowledged in a blog on Monday 10 August that reducing fuel loads is essential to preventing catastrophic moorland fires. The association says policy must now catch up with the words.

What has Natural England accepted?

According to the MA’s analysis, published the same day by chief executive Andrew Gilruth, Natural England now publicly accepts that managing vegetation through grazing, cutting and firebreaks is an essential part of wildfire prevention, a case land managers have pressed throughout a summer of record fire activity.

The association notes one omission: prescribed burning. Cool-season controlled burns remain absent from the regulator’s list of accepted tools, even though, as the MA points out, Natural England’s own management plan for its Thursley nature reserve includes controlled burns.

Where does licensing still block the work?

The MA argues that consents and licensing continue to hold back practical fuel management on the ground, citing a burning licence at Hurst and Chunal in the Peak District that expired unused. The association asks “whether Natural England will apply to land managed by others the same wildfire-management principles it recognises as necessary on its own” reserves, pointing to the fuel-management standards accepted at Humberhead Peatlands.

The exchange follows the MA’s public deadline to Natural England over moorland access closures during extreme fire risk, and a summer in which gamekeepers have repeatedly fought fires alongside professional crews.

What happens next

The MA wants the regulator’s acknowledgment turned into working policy: consents that allow fuel reduction at scale, and parity between what Natural England practises on its own reserves and what it permits elsewhere. Ruth Waters’ blog and the MA’s full response are both online.