The simple vision of rewilded uplands painted yesterday prompted a question from a reader (Ezra Lucas) that is answered, or at least discussed, here.
The question is how do we get from where we are to a more rewilded upland situation, and how do we get from a post-grouse shooting world to rewilded uplands?
First, although a lot of the uplands are owned by grouse shooters quite a lot are owned by others who let out the land for grouse shooting. One example is the National Trust who are moving away from this position under public pressure in the Peak District. The NT High Peak Vision is a vision of moderate rewilding. In the Peak District, the National Park, ie we taxpayers, own some land and that no longer has grouse shooting on it. A certain amount of rewilding can take place simply by landowners realising that it is as good thing and that it is what their customers or taxpayers, or even investors, want. The water companies are an obvious group in this regard – they ought to be moving far more quickly to reduce the costs imposed on their customers by heather burning and the costs imposed on society as a whole. This is an area where public pressure will have an impact – but we can’t do everything at once.
Much intensive grouse shooting takes place in National Parks – it’s ridiculous really that a land-, water- and air-damaging activity takes place in areas set up to protect and enhance natural beauty – but there you go. But those National Parks were clearly set up for the public good and not for the profit of a few – and so there is every chance that over time, with more science and more criminal cases coming to light – that we, the public, can influence the land management of our national parks. And once we have a National Park that is much more rewilded it will act as a beacon which others can see and will probably want to emulate. I’ve always thought the Peak District is the place to start – but anywhere would be a good place to start.
It’s not always true that driven grouse shooting makes lots of money. What is true is that it is a high-input – high-output form of management. Once you are paying a large gang of gamekeepers and for all their kit you need lots of grouse days to be sold to recoup your investment. In years like last year the costs of keepering were still high but the grouse bags were very low – not a good year financially for grouse moors. But what is true is that land values are rising, at least in Scotland, and that those are related to grouse bags. As it becomes more difficult to commit wildlife crimes without being caught, as it becomes more difficult to wreck the habitat and cause environmental damage just for a pointless sport, then land prices will start to drop and that will allow other interests into grouse shooting areas. When they, perhaps wildlife organisations or perhaps individuals who are keen on rewilding or perhaps even the state, begin to be more active in an area then the task of wiping out predators legally becomes more difficult and the task of getting away with wildlife crime becomes more difficult. Once every Goshawk nest has a camera on it the grouse moor owner wanting his keeper to kill them finds it a bit difficult to get it done. Lower land prices will aid a more diverse land use.
And remember we are paying all landowners, just about all of them, large amounts of our money in return for – often not very much at the moment. See yesterday’s blog which goes into this in more detail. but we can, and it will be easier if we brexit, remove money from landowners, or make the provision of that money contingent on anything we like in theory. We could get the Chair of the Moorland Association to make a public address in favour of Hen Harriers every Inglorious 12th if we really wanted.
Also, full-on rewilding isn’t necessarily the endpoint that all will want, and not for all places, and there are plenty of heathery areas across the west of Scotland, for example, that are economically viable without driven grouse shooting. With the right channelling of public support we can get almost whatever land uses we want. Tourism is a good way to make money from much of this land, and a way that benefits a much wider tranche of the local community.
I could go on but I won’t. From now on, all these factors will be chipping away at the grouse shooting industry and they will take their toll over time. It may well be quicker than we think.
Will a lot of grumpy landowners kill birds of prey out of spite? Probably for a while but it will be expensive to hire the people to do it if the chances of capture are a bit higher and spite fizzles out after a while. We can wait for the spleen to disappear. And will the alternatives to intensive grouse shooting be worse? I really don’t think so in National Parks and SSSIs and… oh, I keep forgetting… we won’t have SPAs and SACs much longer. Well that is a blow, but these are highly regulated landscapes which receive lots and lots of public money so we have the whip hand.
The short anser is that we can have whatever type of uplands we want because we are the people, we are many, these areas are designated for the public good and we are paying in a whole range of ways for what happens on the land. We are in charge and when we realise that we can make quicker progress. Spread the word that we are in charge – and here’s one way to do it – please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting..
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Interesting to note the last time the National trust closed a shoot was due to increased use of the area by the public! I suggest that the figures for public use in most of these upland areas have risen considerable so how about doing the same again National Trust!
Great Bookham not comparable to Peak District – you might not like the outcome so be careful what you wish for …
Also add in LVT – Land Value Tax – to achieve a greener, fairer countryside and society:
https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ld.html
http://www.labourland.org/benefits-of-land-value-tax/
http://www.labourland.org/
I totally agree that there is now a potential opportunity to cut off one income stream to driven grouse moor owners, and you won’t be surprised to read that my suggestion is to go down the animal welfare avenue.
‘Not a penny for blood sports’ might resonate with a wider section of people than ‘Save our Hen Harriers’. Not that the two are in any way mutually exclusive.
Very much in agreement, Alan Two.
Hopefully we can all agree the two concerns are one.
Thanks, Marian. But even leaving aside my own personal ethical convictions (which I know many people here don’t share), I think it’s the only way to bring about change on the scale that is needed to halt or reverse the declines in our wildlife.
The recent referendum is just another example of how most people’s attitudes are driven by emotion rather than factual argument. The only emotion I can think of that is sufficiently powerful and widespread to make a difference in the face of stonewall opposition from strong sections of the establishment is ‘biophilia’ – a respect for other living things, or at least a sense of revulsion at the abuse or needless killing of them. If we ignore or set our face against this, we just shoot ourselves in the foot.
Mark, whilst not directly relevant to this (excellent) blog, and looking back to yesterday, it is not just about the uplands. Without them really realising it, conservationists have been pushed back to the margins by the post-1947 agricultural settlement that says every inch of better ground is for farming, and farming alone, which is still embodied in Defra regulations as well as CAP. This is quite wrong: the uplands are great, but when people say they are the ‘green lungs’ of the country, I always wonder how long the majority of us who live in towns and cities must hold our breath. We must not make this mistake again: as the NCC have shown, wilder land, whether it is woodland, grassland, reedbed, whatever close to our towns and cities can far outstrip single-purpose farming in economic value, ranging from the ‘soft’ values of recreation and wildlife to ‘hard’ values like flood defence. And, ,increasingly, with the epidemic of obesity things like walking that traditionally have been seen as ‘nice to’s’ compared to food production’s ‘vitally important’ may be seen as hard values themselves in the fight to contain health costs.
How do we get to rewilded uplands? Well we gather all the gamekeepers, shooters, and big landowners in one place. Then a hearty shout of “Read, aim; FIRE!” and we begin rebuilding.
However since few people these days seem to be in favour of putting them up against the wall or having the revolution, we’ll have to do it the slow way. That is going to involve grinding away at opposition to it. Inspiring an apathetic public and reshaping their opinions on the subject. It means always finding a way to drop the subject into conversations (yes, for those of us who are not yet one of those monomaniacal bores at parties, it means becoming one). It means constantly documenting abuses and habitat destruction almost constantly, and it’ll mean taking a lot of abuse from pro-shooting groups and the knee-jerk “Kick a Leftie” instinct of the UK public who still see environmental issues for wets who hate cars. I wish the Green Party would do something to tackle (or even recognise) their anti-car bias, especially as we stand on the cusp of fully autonomous vehicles, it is holding the whole movement back. And ultimately, and this is a serious thing for those who will be involved at the sharp end since ever since Blair both main parties has made protesting government policy potentially life ruining, it will involve criminal damage and civil disturbance in order to seriously and properly inconvenience the keepers and shooters.
Personally, I’d rather have had the revolution. Even if I’d be first against the wall in the counter-revolution.
I’d probably do the following:
1) Set out a point in time, say 2020, by which time all CAP-style Area Payments will be phased out
2) Have transition arrangements in the lead-up to 2020 during which a proportion of the annual ten billion is used to support farmers on very marginal land to withdraw from farming, and create Community Land Trusts across the country, capitalised so they can purchase and manage marginal areas, for public benefit, including lease back to farmers at very low rates if low-intensity farming is appropriate (often, the re-introduction of lost large herbivores or herbivores sharing their traits might be better)
3) Establish a competitive fund into which land owners / farmers can bid for public funding to deliver projects demonstrably beneficial to the public – such as maintaining or creating large, accessible nature reserves and rewilded landscapes, making upper catchments more absorptive of water and restoring large floodplain areas. Such schemes should be subject to long contracts – say 20 years +
4) Require more productive farmers to maintain and recover some measure of biodiversity, such as farmland bird and arable flora populations, as part of their licence to operate in landscapes we all value, but also provide some public funding in return for the efforts they’re required to make in the public interest
Given that community land trusts tend to deliver land management cost-effectively, and rewilding is vastly cheaper, in terms on of-going costs, than highly prescriptive (and hitherto largely ineffectual) agri-environment schemes, the above ought to be achievable at lower cost to the public, post the transition period, allowing at least a portion of the 3 billion to be subsequently diverted elsewhere.
This is interesting and very attractive. Add LVT to your vision and the countryside will blossom and sing again.
Mark, thank you for answering some of my questions, I’m glad that we seem to have a reasonable economic grasp on this. Personally I’m feeling pretty pessimistic about having any great strength to our environmental legislation post brexit (can you tell I am one of 75% of under 25s?) but I suppose that doesn’t mean we should just give up on it! A strong system for funding good land management has to be a priority, as does ensuring it has teeth in the event of any “unfortunate accidents” with environmental misdemeanours.
My deeper concerns are with the attitudes and mindsets of the people involved. As I said yesterday I think this goes deeper than economics. Some of the other commentators have suggested removing all funding for blood sports in the new system and I’m all for that, I just fear that won’t be enough to drive these bad practices out. I can see a grimmer future in which deliberate, malicious and illegal wildlife persecution increases as the stance of “its a fine British tradition in a newly free Britain” becomes a mindset forged in self entitlement.
Additionally I’m still not sure why these grouse moors are going to cooperate with the people who stopped them doing what they wanted to do. I wouldn’t be enormously surprised to see grouse moors trying to do anything except work with conservationists more or less out of pure spite. That said, I don’t know what the diversification prospects are like for an ex-grouse moor, though I’d be surprised if rewilding was their only other choice.
Ultimately I know there are landowner out there who share your vision, but getting more attitude shifts would seem to be vital if the measure you propose are to succeed, especially as payment for ecosystem services schemes (which I guess is sort of what we are proposing?) have shown very variable results, much of which depends on buy in from all parties to the vision of the project.
All in all, I still like and fully support the vision. Despite my post-brexit blues, I do think now is a time when positive change could be enacted, and that campaigning hard on many issues is absolutely vital at times like these. I’m not sure how we plan to bring more grouse moors into a more environmentally friendly mindset (an issue that people with vastly more experience of the field haven’t had much success in), but maybe, just maybe, we will get environmental legislation and enforcement to a strength that make that irrelevant.
Ezra – I very much share your hopes and concerns. For me, the approach that offers the best chance of success is to take every opportunity to gradually erode support for blood sports among the general public, by publicising just what unpleasant and damaging activities go on beneath the ‘traditional’ veneer. It will be a slow process, but I have some confidence that outdated and barbaric practices usually do die out, and young people are key to hastening that process.
Brexit may trigger an upturn in thuggishness and abuse in the countryside in the name of Britishness (or Englishness?), but it may also provide an opportunity to shine a light into some dark corners of rural life. In the long run, that could help bring about change.