Having joined forces with the RSPB to run an unsuccessful campaign called 'ban-the-burn', which sort to ban any sort of burning across our uplands, Wild Justice then tried to challenge the government's new legislation on burning, saying 'it did not go nearly far enough'.
This is because the government, as well as scientists all over the world, recognised the importance of controlled heather burning as wildfire prevention measure.
On October 20th, Chris Packham and his Wild Justice chums suffered the ignominy of having their case to win a judicial review of Defra’s burning legislation thrown out of court.
In court, the Wild Justice trio were attempting to persuade the court that the Heather and Grass Burning Regulations 2021 did not go far enough for their liking, that the rules could not be enforced, and that they contained a legal error. Judge Ian Dove dismissed all of the above as not “arguable.”
The failure did not end here, however: Packham and co were also told by the court to remunerate relevant parties for the time and costs sunk into the case, to the tune of £10,000. Bear in mind here that Wild Justice is entirely funded by its supporters. That money was swiftly donated to the Gamekeepers Welfare Trust.