 I can't think of anything more pointless than the thousands of pounds this operation will cost. I'm quite certain that the vegetation would quite happily recolonise the site just as quickly by itself. How do they think the moorland recovered after previous fires?
And when will people accept that fires are, by and large, good? It prevent land becoming overgrown. When fire burns back vegetation, a whole new raft of species can grow as the land progresses back to how it was. Great for diversity.
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 I think that the problem is erosion. If you have a really hot fire, you lose the root structure as well. Then wind and rain runoff strip the topsoil, seeds, etc.
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 .....and so the natural change in the environment happens. "fast growing grass" - mm! doesn't sound very natural to me.
fire is natural. the landscape changes as nature finds the best balance of life to colonise it. intervening and screwing it up only stores up future problems.
waste of money.
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Umm, a 'natural' moors landscape is one covered in trees.
The moors we are used to are 'gardened'.
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like the downs......parts are having to be managed again to prevent trees taking over.
so, why not an "experiment" - let part of it (moors/downs etc) revert back to its "natural" state and reverse thousands of years of man's interference - or make it worthwhile to farm. or both. a natural landscape partially managed as an economic benefit.
(no tree hugging here)
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AD - fair point, but I think wind-blown grass seeds would recolonise just as quickly as heli-dropped seed.
I really think someone has more money than sense.
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More money than sense, £4 million over 5 years for this huge area of moorland. That would cover about half a premiership player and is used by about 11 million people a year, doesn't seem bad value. The areas won't be re-colonised because all the nutrients are in the peat, which has gone up in smoke. What hasn't disappeared yet will go as soon as there's a heavy rain. If you're talking about an area of a couple of square kilometres, where is the wind-blown grass seed going to come from? These fantastic areas need financial help, don't you think? And I think that the £4million is also going on repairing footpaths, not just on fire damage.
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 Yes moorland and heathland is a man made habitat, but, it is also one within which a whole eco-system of rare and endangered species live hence the spending on trying to re-create the habitat for the species that survived the fire.
I don't know all the details in this case but i would bet money that the "natural fire" was started by youngsters in school holidays as are 90% of the heathland fires down here !
One other thing - define "Natural" always provokes a good debate ;o)
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 'natural' is NOT a premiership player - will that do?
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 Tumm teee tummm te tum.....come on baby, light my fire.......tee tumm te tumm
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'course, if they left to erode "naturally" they would then probably slab it. Make a nice patio, though.
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 Some very interesting replies to this post, and one that evokes the age old arguments over the “rights” of access and preservation of the landscape whether man made or “natural.”
One thing that has not been mentioned here though regarding the “purging” of the landscape by fire is that most fires in the UK are not “naturally” occurring, but are as a result of arsonists having “fun.”
Here in South Wales we had an extraordinary amount of fires during the very dry summer, which thanks to the arsonists destroyed vast areas of forestry and heath land at a rate unheard of in a temperate country like ours. I can understand the “natural” element of fires in the Australian outback for example, but it is not really a naturally occurring act of nature in the UK.
Some interference may therefore be necessary from the “keepers” of the land therefore, but I do symphatise with the views of those thinking that this is a waste of money.
Another aspect of this of course is how far do we go to “protect” the mountains from the erosion of the people who visit. In some parts of the beacons, the stone slab paths are better than those laid in town centers, and are of course the most unnatural of additions to the “rugged” landscape.
What is not disputable however is the extreme damage being done by off roaders and in particular, those on motor cycles and quads.
Talking to a local council warden recently, whose council only has about 1.5 miles of a particular mountain track to maintain, he was telling me that it would cost the council upwards of 20.000 pounds to repair the damage on this one short stretch, and even if they had the money to do it, it would be “a waste of time” given that the damage would just be repeated.
In the meantime, walkers and mountain cyclists are taking even widening diversions from the path to enable progress past the ever deepening ruts, those inviting even larger areas of sheer destruction!!
At least in this instance it seems that SOMEONE is trying to redress the balance!
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The burns on Bleaklow last year appeared to be deliberate arson, fires popping up in really difficult places. Yes, increasing the amount of deciduous tree cover in moorland valleys would be a fantastic idea, the moorland tops have been clear of trees for about 7000 years and also include upland raised mires, a priority habitat across Europe. They are also special protection areas because of bird interest, again European importance.
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 I used to do a fair bit of voluntary work in the Peak National Park when I lived in Sheffield (former poster-child for BTCV!)and one of the things we spent a lot of time doing was stopping the natural vegetation progression in the dales - clearing scrub to maintain orchid species on slopes formerly grazed clear of scrub but now devoid of sheep. I still have scars from clearing hawthorn and blackthorn.
Scrub will do its thing quite happily when left to it, but without protection things like the early purple orchid would disappear.
So manage it. Understand it first, and then manage it to protect environments that would otherwise disappear. Where those environments used to naturally exist might now be beneath Milton Keynes etc
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Your spot on there Richard !! My view of BTCV volunteers has now changed ;o)
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How you manage it depends on the habitat though doesn't it. The white peak is limestone grassland which will scrub up if left and the important habitats are those open grasslands.
The dark peak is peat based and the important habitats are moorland and raised bogs. They are under threat from over-grazing (EU subsidies to upland sheep farmers) and accidental burning. Yes, you do burn heather moorland to manage it but not in the middle of summer, which is when all the little arsonists set fire to it. If you burn it then, then the whole of the heather is burnt off and the peat catches fire, which means that the soil is sterilised and nothing regrows.
Like you say, Richard, understand the habitat first and then manage it, the peak district is a big place and it is possible to manage the different parts of it differently.
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People seemed to have over-looked one thing - lightning. Before 'man' was on the scene, fires started by lightning burned far and wide (no firefighters) but nature always recovered, in fact nature benefits (it clears the scrub, which Richard above spent ages clearing - would've been a lot easier just to burn it!). Unless the land has become too over-grown the fires don't burn hot enough to damage seeds within the soil - that then get the chance to germinate.
Even today lightning remains a major cause of countryside fires.
Equally, I'm not sure how dumping tonnes of fast growing grass seed on the moors will help rare, slow-growing species survive...
Personally, I hate the 'we must manage nature' attitude that seems to be the 'big thing' at the moment. Who's to say that upland woods aren't a more valuable habitat than moorland? It's rarer, for a start. More-over, the appearance of much of our 'natural' upland areas owes nothing to 'nature conservation' - it's simply down to sheep, which stop anything from growing over a few inches.
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 To answer your original poser, Dan, no, not at all.
Even allowing for lightning strikes.
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