7th December - Why do RSPB reserves keep going up in flames?

The impact of global warming continues to be felt around the world, and nowhere more so than on reserves managed by the RSPB. Last year one of the largest wildfires ever recorded in the UK took place on land managed by the RSPB in Scotland, near Cannich to the southwest of Inverness.

It had been an exceptional dry spell with hot and sunny weather. The fire soon ripped through the RSPB’s Corrimony nature reserve.

In the charity’s own words “Corrimony is a treasure trove for anyone who loves birds, and hosts species ranging from Black Grouse, Scottish Crossbills and,- Crested Tits to soaring Golden Eagles….Unfortunately, the fire destroyed great swathes of precious habitat, undoing 20 years of careful woodland restoration. Much of the habitat had been restored and expanded over the last two decades using natural regeneration.”

The impact of this was that thousands of acres of newly planted native trees and hundreds of ground nesting birds, nests, eggs, chicks and amphibians were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of dangerous carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere causing untold environmental damage.

Although no one is blaming the RSPB for the fire starting, their decision to stop muirburn, and overall inadequate fire management, led to the reserve being far more widely damaged than land that is regularly managed through controlled burning and the creation of firebreaks.

The Corrimony fire followed similar environmental destruction that took place at their reserve in Sutherland when that was engulfed by wildfire in May 2019. In both cases, the RSPB required the urgent intervention of nearby gamekeepers to eventually get the fires under control. 

Appallingly those same gamekeepers, whom RSPB ritually deride, were left alone on their nature reserve to try to save it from further damage after RSPB staff departed the scene at the time.

In the aftermath the charity launched a widespread fundraising campaign to try and get donors to pay for the recovery cost.

The charity said it wants to 'build resilience to wildfire in the landscape by reducing the cycle of burning'.

Well guess what, it doesn’t work does it. It is time the public stopped paying for mistakes of the RSPB.