Comment on: “Peatland carbon stocks and burn history: Blanket bog peat core evidence highlights charcoal impacts on peat physical properties and long‐term carbon storage,” by A. Heinemeyer, Q. Asena, W. L. Burn and A. L. Jones (Geo: Geography and Environment 2018; e00063)

Abstract

A recent paper by Heinemeyer et al. (2018) in this journal has suggested that the use of prescribed fire may enhance carbon accumulation in UK upland blanket bogs. We challenge this finding based on a number of concerns with the original manuscript including the lack of an unburned control, insufficient replication, unrecognised potential confounding factors, and potentially large inaccuracies in the core dating approach used to calculate carbon accumulation rates. We argue that burn‐management of peatlands is more likely to lead to carbon loss than carbon gain.e00075

Contextualising UK moorland burning studies: geographical versus potential sponsorship-bias effects on research conclusions

“…A&H suggested that the EMBER work was problematic, proposing that geographical variation had not been considered. This critique follows recent notable debates on aspects of UK moorland burning (Brown et al, 2016, Davies et al, 2016a, Davies et al, 2016b, Douglas et al, 2016, Evans et al, 2019, Heinemeyer et al, 2019 and addendums to research papers due to a lack of transparency from some authors regarding competing interests (Marrs et al, 2019a). To date, there has been no detailed wider analysis of the funding source or competing interests of scientists contributing to these debates to understand if this is a broader issue that should be taken into account.…”

Response to: Comment on “Peatland carbon stocks and burn history: Blanket bog peat core evidence highlights charcoal impacts on peat physical properties and long‐term carbon storage” by Evans et al. (Geo: Geography and Environment 2019; e00075)

“…We therefore would like to clarify up front that our findings are to be seen only in the context of rotational burning on UK upland blanket bogsan interpretation within other fire contexts, specifically a tropical context, is not and never was felt appropriate by the authors. While we appreciate that the comments made by Evans et al (2019) are well intended, we remain confident in the robustness of our data and below we defend the methods and main results. However, within the UK context we feel this work adds considerable weight to the somewhat limited, but now growing body of evidence regarding prescribed heather burning impacts on blanket bog ecosystem services, specifically carbon storage.…”

“…Indeed, as the only major study on prescribed burning impacts on soil carbon stocks at that time (as highlighted by Evans et al, 2014), we feel that Garnett et al (2000) should be subject to detailed scrutiny in order to determine gaps in our understanding and inform future research. While we appreciate that the comments made by Evans et al (2019) are well intended, we remain confident in the robustness of our data and below we defend the methods and main results. For this, we provide further clarification and justification of our methods, together with providing some additional references and graphical information to support the interpretation of our findings and our overall conclusions.…”

“…We would like to thank the authors Evans et al (2019) for submitting a comment on our recent publication "Peatland carbon stocks and burn history: Blanket bog peat core evidence highlights charcoal impacts on peat physical properties and long-term carbon storage" ; we especially value their direct and open approach. We hope that our response clarifies our methods, findings and conclusions; we also provide further references and more detailed information around the limitations and remaining knowledge gaps.…”

Whither scientific debate? A rebuttal of “Contextualising UK moorland burning studies: geographical versus potential sponsorship-bias effects on research conclusions” by Brown and Holden (bioRxiv 2019; 731117)

“…Therefore, any attempt to contextualise the findings of the EMBER report would be unreliable. The reality is that, for all ecosystem properties, the prescribed burning evidence base is weak, especially on deep peat (Glaves et al 2013;Harper et al 2018), which may explain the ongoing debate about burning impacts amongst the wider research community (Brown, Holden & Palmer 2016;Davies et al 2016a;Davies et al 2016b;Douglas et al 2016;Evans et al 2019;. It is our view that, to properly understand burning impacts on blanket bog ecosystems, we desperately need a series of long-term, catchment-scale and multi-site BACI studies (e.g.…”