Last spring was the first time we had seen significant wildfires in the Cambrians and we hadn’t thought, with the very damp start to the year and the cooler spring, that we’d be seeing it again this year.  But sad to report, the Elenydd has now been ablaze for nearly a week with a fire rampaging from the Claerwen across to the Teifi Pools (shown in our photograph as seen from Cwmystwyth by CMS Member David Barnes on Friday).  In peak nesting and lambing season, it’s hard to contemplate the damage being done to the peat, the farmers and the birdlife of this central portion of the uplands.  No consolation to know that it is happening in Bannau Brycheiniog and elsewhere as well; Wales has too little peat to lose even an acre, and the Cambrians hold much of the deepest of it.

Burns like this release centuries’ worth of carbon which would otherwise be safely stored away from the atmosphere forever (unlike the carbon temporarily removed through growing trees by increasing the area of commercial forestry, for instance).  Working to rewet peat also entails absolutely no carbon emissions at all, unlike building turbines, roads and pylons to produce electricity to meet the apparently unchallengeable, and infinite, increasing demand.  Whoever forms the new Welsh Government after next week’s Senedd election, stopping the further degradation of our peatlands has to be an urgent priority followed by wider work to restore it to a healthy, damp and – crucially – fire-resistant condition.  We have no time to lose!