Is it time to stand up for our bogs?

摘要

The Pennines above Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire are the unlikely location of a new battle between environmental activists and the conservation establishment. Bleak and windswept, they may epitomise the UK's failure to protect an increasingly rare habitat.The dispute is over Walshaw Moor. The landowner is accused of draining and burning a blanket bog that's home to a wide range of plants, invertebrates and breeding birds such as golden plovers. The motive is to create more heather moorland habitat for grouse, onwhich the economic viability of a moorland estate largely depends.