In June, the NGO met with scientists from the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Imperial College London to give them a guided tour of managed moorland and to demonstrate how the work of gamekeepers makes these valuable site more resilient to wildfires.
On Tuesday 9th June the NGO met with scientists from the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Imperial College London to give them a guided tour of managed moorland and to demonstrate how the work of gamekeepers makes these valuable site more resilient to wildfires. The scientists had a specialist interest in UK wildfire resilience.
They wanted to look at a variety of aspects, including land management, land practices and land governance and policy regarding wildfire risk and adaptations, to see where the problems lie and how they can be circumnavigated.
Dr Cathy Smith had specialisms in wildfire and upland management and rural community fire use, as well as global human fire use history. Sophy Greenhalgh was looking at the national resilience to wildfire in the UK, with a view to establishing some of the issues related to land management for wildfire resilience.
We invited local gamekeepers and land managers to discuss their role and why prescribed burning was such a valuable tool in wildfire prevention. Ian Sleightholm from the NGO Moorland Branch explained which bird species preferred short vegetation to nest, and explained that if we chose to walk away and not manage the vegetation then we need to be prepared to lose many of our enigmatic upland birds.
Last but not least, Dr Andreas Heinemeyer from York University explained his findings so far, now that he is over half way through a twenty year study on the effects of heather burning on carbon sequestration.
ENDS
The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) represents the gamekeepers of England and Wales. The NGO defends and promotes gamekeeping and gamekeepers and works to ensure high standards throughout the profession. The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation was founded in 1997 by a group of gamekeepers who felt that keepering was threatened by public misunderstanding and poor representation. Today, there are 13,000 members of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. www.nationalgamekeepers.org.uk
