BEHIND THE HEADLINES SPECIAL FIRE IN THE HILLS
A journey across moorland in the north of England can feel like travelling through a great wilderness. Often, over the autumn and early spring months, if the conditions are right (dry, with a breeze and the ground still damp underfoot), there may be a pall of smoke hanging on the horizon. If the wind is blowing towards you, it may bring with it a trace of that throat-catching smoke.
How you react to this will probably depend on your view of driven grouse shooting, because this smoke arises from the deliberate burning of the moors to provide a habitat for next season’s surplus grouse to be shot. Some agree with environmentalist George Monbiot that such burning is “vandalism”. Others see a management practice that has at its root a
