For peat’s sake, get to the crux of the matter | Letter
by Letters from World news | The Guardian on (#5HCHX)
Readers respond to an article on the battle to burn England's moorlands
Why is an otherwise balanced article on the importance of peat bogs (It has become them and us': the battle to burn England's moorlands, 1 May) framed by the grouse moor landowners' point of view, beginning with the title and ending with a gamekeeper's claim that without grouse moors the Yorkshire Dales wouldn't be beautiful"?
Burning what is recognised as the UK's equivalent of the Amazon rainforest - upland peat bog - in order to provide a tiny elite with as many grouse as possible to kill strikes the majority as an absurdity. To claim the dales would be aesthetically barren without driven grouse shooting adds insult to injury.
Dr BEJ McLeod
Chair, Friends of the Dales