The Scottish Ministers made the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 on 20 August 2026, laid them before the Scottish Parliament on 24 August, and set 10 October 2026 for commencement. This is a technical consequential instrument rather than a fresh policy package. Its purpose is to align older secondary legislation with Part 2 of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 and to adjust cross-references in light of the repeal of much of the Hill Farming Act 1946 muirburn regime. That timing matters because the new regulatory model is already close. NatureScot’s published guidance states that, from 15 September 2026, a licence will be required to carry out muirburn on any land in Scotland, and carrying out muirburn without a licence will be an offence. (nature.scot)
According to the explanatory note accompanying the instrument, muirburn was previously regulated under the Hill Farming Act 1946. Part 2 of the 2024 Act replaces that position with a licensing scheme. The wider legislative direction has been visible since Royal Assent in April 2024, when the Act established a statutory basis for licensing the making of muirburn and for the preparation of a new Muirburn Code. (legislation.gov.uk) For Policy Wire readers, the main point is that this SSI does not reopen the underlying policy argument about whether muirburn should be licensed. That decision has already been taken in primary legislation. The present instrument is concerned with ensuring that older Scottish environmental rules still read coherently once the new licensing framework is live.
NatureScot’s Muirburn Code is part of that change. The agency states that the code introduced under section 18 of the 2024 Act takes effect on 15 September 2026, that licence holders must have regard to it, and that failure to do so can amount to a breach with enforcement consequences. (nature.scot) In the text of this SSI, the recurring amendment is the replacement of references to older advisory leaflets with the statutory code now sitting inside the 2024 framework. That is the most visible drafting pattern across the instrument.
The largest block of amendments falls on nine Environmentally Sensitive Areas designation orders from 1992 and 1993. For Loch Lomond, Breadalbane, the Central and Western Southern Uplands, Cairngorms Straths, Central Borders, Stewartry, Argyll Islands and Shetland Islands, agreement conditions on controlled burning are rewritten so that they refer to the Muirburn Code prepared under section 18 of the 2024 Act. Older references to the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group’s 1988 leaflet, "The Principles and Practice of Heather Burning", and Scottish Natural Heritage’s 1993 "A Muirburn Code" are removed. For agreement holders, the effect is administrative but real. The instrument does not preserve separate area-by-area burning guidance within those legacy schemes. Instead, it points them back to the single statutory code that NatureScot says will apply from 15 September 2026. In Shetland, the amendment also reaches both crofter or farmer agreements and common grazings committee agreements. (nature.scot)
The instrument also adjusts the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994. In two places, functions under Part 2 of the 2024 Act are inserted into the set of functions that engage duties relating to compliance and duties in relation to wild bird habitat. At the same time, the instrument narrows an older Hill Farming Act reference from sections 23A to 24 to section 24, reflecting the fact that the 2024 Act repeals the main licensing provisions of the former regime. A similar exercise is carried out in the Environmental Regulation (Significant Environmental Harm) (Scotland) Order 2014. The schedule of specified enactments is expanded to include Part 2 of the 2024 Act, while the old Hill Farming Act reference is reduced from sections 23 to 26A to sections 24 and 26A. In practical terms, this keeps the environmental harm regime aligned with the narrower set of Hill Farming Act provisions that remain relevant after the 2024 reforms.
The final amendment is small but operationally important for site management. The Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 (Authorised Operations) Order 2016 previously treated muirburn carried out under a section 23C Hill Farming Act licence as an authorised operation. This SSI substitutes a reference to section 14 of the 2024 Act instead, so the authorised-operations route now maps onto the modern muirburn licence rather than the former Hill Farming Act permission. NatureScot’s applicant guidance places section 14 at the centre of the new licensing process, and the 2016 Order shows how the earlier authorised-operations route depended on the old section 23C licence. The consequential amendment therefore closes a practical gap that would otherwise have appeared in SSSI-related administration. (ecolex.org)
For practitioners, the effect is straightforward even if the drafting is dense. Estates, farmers, crofters, common grazings committees, conservation advisers and public bodies should now review any template, consent note or land management document that still cites the 1988 or 1993 burning leaflets, or a Hill Farming Act muirburn licence, and replace those assumptions with the 2024 Act position. The sequence is now settled. According to NatureScot, the statutory Muirburn Code takes effect on 15 September 2026 and the licensing requirement begins on the same date. This consequential SSI then completes the secondary legislation alignment scheduled to come into force on 10 October 2026. For affected operators, the compliance task sits less in new field practice than in making sure legacy paperwork, agreements and legal references now match the post-Hill Farming Act regime. (nature.scot)