Grouse moors continue to set fire to Britain's heather-clad hills to engineer optimal breeding habitat for game birds for shooting.

Burning moorland has a broad range of ecological impacts including degrading peatlands, releasing climate-altering gasses into the atmosphere, decreasing biodiversity and contributing to flooding in communities downstream from grouse moors.

Britain's peatlands store more carbon than all the forests in the UK, France and Germany combined, yet in the midst of a climate crisis over 720 incidents of burning were performed on grouse moors between October 2020 - April 2021. The Committee on Climate Change—which advises governments on environmental protection—has subsequently recommended that a grouse moor burning ban is introduced without delay.

Burning has also continued on moorland in flood-prone areas, where the damaged peatland hills are no longer acting as an effective flood barrier, resulting in increased run-off water into downstream communities.

Moreover, moorland residents have aired concerns that burning has increased in severity in recent years, and is being conducted “day after day after day”, with smog polluting communities and smoke entering homes.

With the clock counting down to the next burning season urgent action is needed to protect Britain's upland environment and communities prone to flooding and smoke pollution. We, the undersigned, urge policy-makers to back a ban on grouse moor burning.