25/07/2026
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Tremendously infuriating and sad in equal measure - Muirburn is an ancient practice of controlled burning of Heather and moorland vegetation carried out by custodians if our great land…. Ignore our Estate Gamekeepers at your peril
SMOKE SIGNALS
The Cairngorm sky wore ash this week,
Where heather, moss and pine grew weak.
The curlew fled, the mountain cried,
And ancient ground was scorched alive.
We watched with hands inside our coats,
Our warnings caught in silent throats.
Not because we did not care—
But because no one wanted us there.
Six hill men, with fire in mind,
Would have burned a break with weather kind.
One morning's work, both safe and planned,
Drawn with flame by an experienced hand.
Instead came engines, steel and might,
Dozens working day and night.
Diggers carving through the land,
To build the breaks we'd long had planned.
The irony cuts, sharp as stone:
You stripped the fuel that should have grown.
Yet those who knew these hills by heart
Were never asked before the start.
For years we've heard our knowledge scorned,
As though old wisdom should be mourned.
Controlled burning became a crime,
Though it shaped these hills through endless time.
From Highland glens to deserts wide,
Indigenous voices pushed aside.
The hands that learned from earth and flame
Are mocked before they're praised by name.
We live these hills. We breathe their air.
We know each burn, each bog, each lair.
We've read the wind since we were young;
The language of the land's our tongue.
You silenced voices born to know
Which winds to trust, which fires to sow.
You cast aside what time had grown,
To reap the flames you've freshly sown.
The hills don't care for rank or fame;
They only answer wind and flame.
You called us all the problem then,
Yet we've always been the answer, men.
So write more rules and draw more lines,
Ignore the wisdom forged by time.
Keep calling hill folk yesterday,
Until the hills have burned away.
For when the last old knowledge dies,
Don't look to us with tear-filled eyes.
You had the answers all along...
You simply chose to prove us wrong.
Alec Iain Poems.