Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

This thread tells a shocking but common story about upland vandalism.
It begins with this blatant misinformation on a display board erected at public expense by @NidderdaleAONB. It claims that burning the land combats climate change and protects wildlife. The opposite is true.

2. I wonder whether this reflects the influence of the landed interests on its advisory committee: such as the Moorland Association. In any case, it looks to me as if it's using public money to promote private interests.
Oh, and take a look at its logo: a red grouse.

3. This is quite common: display boards in "protected" areas often claim that trashed wastelands are magnificent wildlife havens, and their disastrous management is the best way to treat them. We need honest communication about the state of the living world. #Tellthetruth

4. Abutting the grouse moor is Guisecliff Wood. It's a rich and beautiful ecosystem,  much of which appears to have regenerated in the past century or so.

The only thing stopping the trees from returning to the moor is burning by the grouse shooters. This is the edge of the most recent burn. You can see scorched saplings in the foreground, and living ones beyond, spilling from the edge of the wood.

The burning creates the grouse shooters' ideal landscape: MAMBA. Miles And Miles of Bugger All.

7. The grouse shooters burn the land to produce the young heather leaves grouse like to eat, creating a kind of gigantic upland chicken farm. They claim to be "burning heather". But in reality they burn everything that can't get away fast enough.
Photo by @Lukesteele4

8. We've been taught to fetishise monocultures of heather or rough grass in the uplands. But they're typical of landscapes worldwide that have been repeatedly burnt, cut or grazed. Upland woods are much rarer habitats in the UK, and much richer in nationally important species.

The name of this ecological desert, by the way?
You couldn't make it up.

10. Unfortunately, it's entirely typical. As @RewildingB showed yesterday, grouse shooting moors also blight vast tracts of our national parks.
theguardian.com/environment/20…

11. They are one of the reasons why there are more trees/hectare in some London boroughs than in some of our national parks.
It's a disgraceful state of affairs.
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…

12. Let's demand wilder national parks.
act.rewildingbritain.org.uk/demand-wilder-…

I wrongly credited the burnt adder photo to Luke Steele. It should be credited to @MoorWatch / Siobhan Macmahon. My apologies.