'This scheme replaces the 1946 Act regime on 15 September 2026.' That is how the explanatory note on legislation.gov.uk sums it up. Scottish ministers have signed off fresh consequential amendments tied to the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, with the instrument made on 20 August 2026, laid before the Scottish Parliament on 24 August 2026 and due to come into force on 10 October 2026. For crofters, farmers, estates and grazings committees working the hills, this is one of those changes that can look dry in Edinburgh and feel much more practical on the ground. The old muirburn regime in the Hill Farming Act 1946 is being replaced by the licensing system in Part 2 of the 2024 Act, which comes fully into force on 15 September 2026.

The main point of the new regulations is straightforward enough. Older environmental rules and agreements that still pointed land managers towards heather burning leaflets from 1988 or 1993 will now point instead to the Muirburn Code prepared under section 18 of the 2024 Act. That update runs across a broad stretch of rural Scotland, including Loch Lomond, Breadalbane, the Central and Western Southern Uplands, Cairngorms Straths, the Central Borders, Stewartry, Argyll Islands and Shetland. For people in those places, this is the legal paperwork catching up with the law now governing muirburn.

It matters because many of those older references sit inside Environmentally Sensitive Area agreements, the sort of wording that can shape what is expected on moorland, rough grazing and managed ground. Instead of leaning on the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group's 'The Principles and Practice of Heather Burning' or Scottish Natural Heritage's 'A Muirburn Code', agreements will now be tied to the current statutory code. Shetland shows how local the effect can be. The amendment reaches both agreements with individual crofters or farmers and agreements with common grazings committees, so it is not only large estates being drawn into the updated wording. Anyone checking conditions for autumn work will need to be sure they are reading the current code, not an old leaflet pulled from a shelf.

The instrument also reaches beyond those area agreements. It amends the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994 so that Part 2 of the 2024 Act is written into duties around compliance and wild bird habitat. It also updates the Environmental Regulation (Significant Environmental Harm) (Scotland) Order 2014 and the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 (Authorised Operations) Order 2016. None of that will grab many headlines on its own, but this is how a new licensing scheme starts to carry real legal weight. References are being moved over, old sections are being stripped out, and the 2024 Act is being fitted into the wider body of Scottish environmental law.

Muirburn has become one of the sharper arguments in Scottish rural policy, sitting between peatland protection, habitat management, farming practice, wildfire concerns and sporting interests. These regulations do not reopen that political row, but they do show the Scottish Government pressing ahead with the post-1946 system set by the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024. For communities in upland and island areas, the shift is more than legal tidying. When the rulebook changes, so do the standards used in agreements, enforcement and day-to-day decisions about land management. What once sat as ageing guidance is now being replaced by a code linked directly to a modern licensing system.

The regulations were authorised by Jim Fairlie on behalf of the Scottish Ministers at St Andrew's House in Edinburgh on 20 August 2026. The dates now matter: Part 2 of the 2024 Act comes fully into force on 15 September 2026, and these consequential amendments follow on 10 October 2026. For anyone burning muir as part of managing land, the message is plain enough. The legal references have moved on, and crofters, farmers, advisers and land managers will need to move with them. It may read like a footnote in the statute book, but from Breadalbane to Shetland it changes which code sits behind the rules.