Updates are available Correction dated 2019-11-20

Article History

First Online: 28 October 2019

Change Date: 20 November 2019

Change Type: Correction

Change Details: An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Competing interests

: Financial competing interests: The work reported in this paper was 95% funded by a Biodiversa grant (ERA-net project within the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme for Research — 2008 Joint call), which in the UK was funded jointly by DEFRA/NERC (NE/G002096/1). DEFRA is a government ministry whose policy is not to burn on peat. R.H.M. was a co- Investigator. The other 5% (about £2,000) was provided by the Heather Trust, which is a charity that’s dedicated to moorland and upland environment management. Non-financial competing interests: R.H.M. is a member of the Heather Trust and currently their honorary President; in this role he is specifically barred from interfering in any aspect of their work and does not have voting rights. The Trust aims to provide good moorland management and foster peat conservation in a range of different ways, of which burning is one approach. The Heather Trust does not seek to influence the author’s views when work they support is published. R.H.M. was an expert panel member for DEFRA in 2004 and 2005, when the regulations for burning on peatland were re-written. R.H.M. was an expert witness in a public inquiry on Heather Burning in 2012, supporting a private client. R.H.M. was an author of two of the reports by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme’s Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands. R.H.M. is a member of the Game Conservancy & Wildlife Trust’s Uplands Research Committee; this is advisory only and is unpaid. R.H.M. is not a member of the GWCT, is not involved with game shooting in any way, has never shot game of any description and has never attended any game-shooting event.