British summers have long been associated with barbequing under an umbrella and soggy summer picnics. Historically, ours has been a wet country. But I fear that is not the case anymore.
Our upland moors, those fantastically mossy sponges that provide much of our drinking water, have been drained, degraded and dried out. Our lowland fens have been stripped of their watery character. Every major river in England has been diverted, channelled, or dredged to move water off the land faster, while field drains have been laid under much of our countryside. England has lost 90% of its wetlands, including almost half a million ponds. Put simply, we have desiccated our landscape.
Such interventions look painfully short-sighted today.
The UK is heading into yet another heatwave, with temperatures forecasted to approach 38 degrees this week, putting vulnerable people at risk. We have experienced temperatures in excess of 30 degrees in May, June, July and August this year. Many parts of the UK have been without meaningful rainfall for weeks, and July was the driest on record, with England receiving just 8% of the average rainfall for this period.
The result? Wildfires. More than 21,000 hectares of British countryside have already been engulfed in flames this year, while catastrophic blazes at home and across Europe have dominated the headlines. This follows record-breaking wildfires in 2025, and warnings of a hotter 2027 due to the forthcoming “super El Niño”.
For millions, the long-forecasted impacts of climate change are quickly and dangerously becoming a lived reality.
Predictably, some have tried to pin the blame on nature. From the Cairngorms National Park to Dunwich Heath in Suffolk, wildlife restoration has been accused by some of increasing the “fuel load” available to burn.
To oversimplify the prevention of wildfires in this way is dangerously irresponsible. Claiming land managers should remove critical wildlife habitat like scrub and deadwood to prevent wildfire is like calling for an end to food to prevent choking: it may work for a few days in some circumstances, but soon creates far bigger problems. Of course, there’s a role for carefully located fire breaks, but are we really to believe that the only answer to wildfire is to denude our countryside of wildlife habitat?
The real drivers of wildfire risk are human-made: a hotter, drier climate; degraded, drained land; and landscapes stripped of their natural resilience. Nature restoration is not the problem. In fact, it is one of the most cost-effective ways to help protect communities from climate impacts – from fire risk to flooding and sea level rise.
Later today, the prime minister will chair an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss the risk of extreme heat and wildfires this year. While welcome, the resulting actions must not be limited to short-term fixes which do little to address our landscape resilience. On-farm reservoirs are only one part of the solution, and will do little to help farmers this year.
Wildfires in summer are here to stay, and extreme conditions will intensify unless we tackle the real causes. Our route to resilience lies in remembering that Britain is, and must again become, a wet country. Government must rapidly cut emissions and put nature recovery at the heart of climate adaptation to hold water, support wildlife, and protect communities from floods and drought.
During the 2019 General Election, political leaders tried to out-compete each other over how many trees their future governments might plant. All welcome, of course. But in 2026, polling by Climate Outreach has shown heatwaves and wildfires are making the majority of Brits more fearful for what’s to come in the future1.
Perhaps today’s leaders, starting with today’s Cobra meeting, should offer pledges about how many field-drains they will remove, how many ponds and wetlands they will restore, how many hectares of peatlands they will re-wet, and (whisper it) even how many beavers they plan to reintroduce. Without such ambition, we stand to face the full effects of climate change with little to no resilience left in our landscapes to tackle it.