Deep peat moorlands store huge amounts of carbon and are a buffer against climate change
Some shooting estates in England burn deep peat moorland in protected areas despite a government ban, say the RSPB and Greenpeace.Peatland vegetation has traditionally been burnt to create and maintain habitats to raise grouse for shooting.
But evidence collected by the bird protection charity, the RSPB, and the environmental campaigning organisation Greenpeace, suggests these "rainforests" are still being set on fire illegally in England. When the government introduced the new regulations, it said there was "consensus that burning vegetation on blanket bog is damaging to peatland formation and habitat condition."It said the new rules in England were intended to protect these rare and delicate habitats and to help the UK hit its target to cut emissions to net zero carbon by 2050.
Greenpeace has taken a more high tech approach. It used a NASA satellite to identify "hotspots" - unusually high temperatures - in areas shown on government maps as protected peat moorlands.Sometimes fires were visible in the images at the coordinates identified by NASA.Where cloud cover made that impossible, the researchers compared before and after pictures to identify burn scars at the location.
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