Muirburn Code Review

The Muirburn Group last met in July 2014. At this meeting the Group supported the proposals contained in the report from the Critique Phase. This had considered the existing Code and the report then outlined proposals for the review. There was support for a move towards training, the adoption of an intelligent approach to muirburn, and the awareness of the importance of communication.

I met with Scottish Government and SNH in December to discuss the situation. It was agreed that the proposals made in the report from the Critique Phase would be accepted and that it would now be possible to proceed to develop a review of the Code. The Critique Phase report proposed that this would be the start of a process, and that the review would not simply be the production of a revised booklet.

It was agreed that the first phase of the review process should be the production of a Practitioners’ Guide. Ideally, this would be in place for the start of the muirburn season in 2015, but this is looking unlikely.

The next action rests with the Scottish Government and this will be to produce tender documents for the first phase of the review.  If the Forum's tender is accepted, our input would be funded, under the terms agreed for commissioned work. Until this tender is approved, we cannot make further progress. 

As soon as I receive tender documents, I would like to convene a meeting of the Muirburn Group to discuss the response, and to form a Steering Group to help develop the tender documents and, if successful, to start work on the review process.