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Any one who has been to Geltsdale recently will have seen the materials describing their ponies as a conservation success story. Having taken over what it describes as a former grouse moor and sheep farm, the charity explains that it reduced sheep grazing and switched to cattle and ponies, which "graze in a different way to sheep, helping to create a more varied mix of ground vegetation". Elsewhere on the reserve, it tells us, ponies are put to work reducing bracken cover to

The Crowden and Arnfield wildfire isn't over. It's gone underground. Containment has been declared, the fire reported out, helicopters stood down and access to the site denied — but the messaging has been conflicting, and it doesn't match what's on the ground. The press are calling what's left "hotspotting." Let's not muddle the language: these are peat soils burning deep underground, undoing centuries of carbon capture, the classic signature of a summer wildfire left to smou

There is a grimly predictable rhythm to moorland fires now. First the smoke, then the helicopters, then the statements about resilience and recovery. And finally, almost as reliably, the gates close and the public are told to keep away. That is exactly what has happened on Crowden and Arnfield Moor. A wildfire broke out on the night of Wednesday 24 June, reportedly started by a camper, tearing across the unmanaged upland above the Longdendale valley. Crews from two fire and r

Some warnings arrive too late to be heeded. Others are ignored in real time. On Tuesday 23 June, Parliament delivered one of the clearest warnings the upland community has heard spoken aloud in years. Giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Natural England's Chief Scientist faced a verdict from the Committee Chair, Alistair Carmichael, that cut to the heart of a decade of failed moorland policy: "You haven't taken people in the upland community w