Muirburn code consultation response

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG

T: 01479 873 535

05 May 2025

Muir­burn Code – Consultation

Dear NatureScot

Ensur­ing that best prac­tice is adhered to when under­tak­ing muir­burn is very import­ant for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. There have been numer­ous examples over March and April 2025 where muir­burn has been car­ried out in con­tra­ven­tion of the cur­rent code with­in the Nation­al Park. The Park Author­ity recog­nises that muir­burn when done well can have pos­it­ive bene­fits espe­cially around fuel load but can also be used to reduce diversity of hab­it­ats and stop appro­pri­ate succession.

The Park Author­ity would like the fol­low­ing points taken into con­sid­er­a­tion in the Muir­burn Code:

1) There is noth­ing in the draft Code about under­tak­ing muir­burn dur­ing peri­ods of high fire risk. This seems like a major issue to exclude espe­cially with cli­mate change mod­els show­ing the risk of wild­fire increas­ing. The Park Author­ity would strongly recom­mend no burn­ing dur­ing peri­ods of high fire risk. It is our under­stand­ing that the cur­rent fire risk warn­ing sys­tem is not neces­sar­ily appro­pri­ate for muir­burn man­age­ment and so the Park Author­ity think this is an area for fur­ther invest­ment to get a sys­tem fit for pur­pose. 2) The draft Code cur­rently advises that prac­ti­tion­ers leave a pro­tect­ive buf­fer of at least 10m around nat­ive wood­land trees and shrubs. This should be man­dat­ory not option­al. 3) The draft Code at present only sug­gests a 2m buf­fer around water courses. The Park Author­ity would like to see this exten­ded to be con­sist­ent with SEPA guidelines. The buf­fer width for the Muir­burn code should be set in line with SEPA’s ​“Recom­men­ded Ripari­an Cor­ridor” as found on the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments Envir­on­ment hub. The Ripari­an Cor­ridor GIS lay­er is a buf­fer zone that extends from the banks of all nat­ur­al water­courses in Scot­land. The Ripari­an Cor­ridor buf­fer has 3 size cat­egor­ies: 10m,

15m, and 30m. The size of buf­fer is determ­ined by the width of each water­course; chan­nels less than 2m wide hav­ing a cor­ridor of 10m, 2m to 15m wide, 15m and great­er than 15m wide, 30m applied to each bank. In total, the ripari­an cor­ridor buf­fer zone adds 20m, 30m or 60m to the width of each river chan­nel. If we are going to see great­er shade and diversity of hab­it­ats along our water­courses then this is a cru­cial change to the draft Code. 4) There is no upper lim­it to burn size in the draft Code. Large burns reduce diversity of hab­it­ats as stated in the draft code — ​‘Large fires are less likely to cre­ate the mosa­ic of hab­it­ats and veget­a­tion ages that provide for­age through the year and increase the biod­iversity value.’ The Park Author­ity would recom­mend an upper lim­it of any indi­vidu­al burn size is needed and con­sid­er­a­tion should also be giv­en to cumu­lat­ive impact of mul­tiple smal­ler burns with­in an area. 5) The draft Code needs to be clear around the defin­i­tions with­in the Code e.g. what is included on a no burn list, what spe­cies are pro­tec­ted e.g. aquat­ic spe­cies and what the sanc­tions are for estates and indi­vidu­als who break the final­ised Code.

The Park Author­ity does a great deal of work with estates across the Nation­al Park includ­ing on river res­tor­a­tion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, wood­land expan­sion, moor­land man­age­ment etc. It would be bene­fi­cial for NatureScot to con­sult the Park Author­ity on muir­burn licence applic­a­tions in the Nation­al Park to make sure that NatureScot bene­fit from this loc­al knowledge.

The man­age­ment of muir­burn is a key issue for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and the team here is happy to dis­cuss any of the points made above.

Yours sin­cerely

Grant Moir CEO, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority