Climate change: Management of Scotland's grouse shooting estates must change radically to cut emissions from peatlands – Dr Richard Dixon

Even if you think it is reasonable to rear grouse so they can be driven in front of the guns of rich people for the ‘sport’ of killing them, even if you are not bothered by the routine illegal killings of birds of prey and legal slaughter of incredible numbers of mountain hares, crows, foxes and other animals, the climate emergency means that the management of all the peat-rich grouse moorland in Scotland will have to change radically, as a new report highlights.

We are in a Climate Emergency. The recent reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tell us that the impacts of climate change are already happening earlier and to a greater degree than predicted. They say there is a narrow window in time to do everything we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Scotland’s peaty soils contain vast amounts of carbon. Around a fifth of Scotland’s land area is covered in soils rich in peat and these contain nearly two billion tonnes of carbon. That is 25 times the amount in all the trees, shrubs and other vegetation in the whole of the UK.