Prescribed heather burning on peatlands:A review of ten key claims made about heather management impacts and implications for future UK policy

In a previous Mires and Peat article, Bacon et al. (2017) questioned ten common assumptions frequently made about peatlands “in the academic literature, practitioner reports and the popular media which are either ambiguous or in some cases incorrect”. In a similar vein, here, we critically examine ten claims frequently made by the UK governmental, non-governmental organisations, popular media and scientists in relation to the effects of prescribed burning of heather on peatlands. The ten claims are: 1. Prescribed heather burning causes a net peat carbon loss and contributes to the climate crisis; 2. Fire and heather dominance are a result of recent management changes; 3. Prescribed heather burning reduces Sphagnum moss abundance and peat formation; 4. Rewetting reduces heather dominance and thus protects peatlands against wildfire; 5. Cessation of heather burning results in wetter peat, less heather cover and no need to burn; 6. Seventy-five percent of global heather moorland is found in the UK; 7. Prescribed heather burning causes water colour and quality issues; 8. Prescribed heather burning causes flooding; 9. Peatlands offer huge carbon sequestration potential and are climate change ‘saviours’; and 10. Prescribed heather burning causes loss of biodiversity. We critically examine the evidence surrounding each of these claims and use our findings to make policy and research recommendations for those interested in the future management of UK peatlands and to facilitate an informed and unbiased debate. The key findings of our assessment are that: (a) government agencies and policymakers need to re-examine the strengths and limitations of the evidence base and be wary of generalisations around management needs and options on heather-dominated peatlands, especially for prescribed burning; (b) researchers need to fully account for potential site-specific and pre-enagement differences and limitations in temporal and spatial scales, especially in urgently needed systematic reviews; (c) in any future work, all major alternative management scenarios should be compared adequately and robustly to burning and assessed for short-term (disturbance) and long-term (trajectory) impacts across appropriate landscape scales, so that management effects (benefits and risks) on ecosystems, their functions and services can be reliably identified to inform policy.