The Defra Press Office has just confirmed to me that Lord Gardiner has been appointed as their Lords minister. I phoned them just now. The Defra Press Officer seemed surprised I should ask, and seemed to think the appointment was made last Thursday. But the government website does not mention his name.
Lord Gardiner is the former Deputy Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance. Maybe someone is having second thoughts about whether such a controversial appointment is really wise.
Having been stymied by the electorate five years ago in his apparent aim to fill Defra with hunters, shooters and fishers (real country folk, I guess) the Prime Minister has taken the opportunity to top up their number in Defra now.
With a Tory government with a small majority we have already seen Robin Page calling for protection of birds of prey to be weakened, pigeon racers calling for the same, the Countryside Alliance in government and tomorrow I expect to be able to tell another sad tale of man maligning birds of prey.
It’s going to be tough.
For example, Lord Gardiner thinks this (or at least he said it):
“When it comes to halting declines in habitats and species-a key objective in the Nagoya agreement-one needs to look no further than the uplands of the north of England. There, heather moorland that has been managed for grouse shooting has been responsible for making the greatest contribution to the improvement in the environmental health of the country’s outstanding wildlife and geological sites. Sites of specific scientific interest cover more than 2 million acres of the land surface of England, and provide vital and extensive refuges for wildlife and essential free natural resources for people. Today, 96 per cent of grouse moors are in a favourable or recovering condition. The support of upland landowners and grouse moor managers has been crucial in achieving this goal. Moorland managed for grouse shooting accounts for some 850,000 acres of uplands, 60 per cent of all upland SSSIs and nearly one-fifth of all England’s SSSI land.
What is either not known or overlooked is that the majority of that management is carried out at the private expense of the land manager. The rural community of this country has a long track record of working in harmony with nature. Since the Moorland Association was formed 25 years ago, members have regenerated and recovered more than 217,000 acres-including 57,000 in the past decade-thereby exceeding the Government’s 2010 conservation target by 170 per cent. Grouse moor owners have shown that they have the ability to achieve this at their own cost, but it should be with the Government’s backing.”
Well, really? We don’t pay agri-environment money and grants from Natural England to grouse moor managers then? And the missing 330-odd pairs of Hen Harriers etc etc etc is perfectly OK?
[registration_form]
The lunatics have actually taken over the asylum. Aside from the potential depredation of raptors this is giving a green light to more unsupervised carnage for the badger population, once again no testing for TB, no vaccination just killing under the guise of protecting cattle. Those same cattle which the farmers get paid compensation for before they are sold at auction to schools and hospitals for food. Remember, those ones that UK farmers brought in unsupervised and unchecked after the foot and mouth outbreak? The ones they have been shipping round the country ever since transferring TB and Johne’s disease and blaming it on badgers. Over 300,000 people signed the anti cull petition last time, the biggest such vote ever, and what notice does the government take – zilch. This year we shall see more unlicensed gangs of shooters out for their jollies shooting and wounding badgers and more protestors ‘out on the ground’ confronting them, who ever dreamed it would come to this?
For regenerated read burned to a crisp.
Mr Angry’s blood is starting to boil!
Surely with a background like that he should be banned from taking any role remotely connected to environmental matters!
Despair inducing.
According to George Monbiot it’s a declaration of war!!!!
Things are really in a very sorry state if we have an officer of the “Countryside Areliars ” in a position of power in DEFRA! They’ll be killing Hen Harriers next!
It would appear that Prince Harry may already have done that: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/07/monarchy.wildlife
Fox in charge of Chicken ,s comes to mind. Looks like we need some Direct action.
It was on CLA website a day or two ago so perhaps they knew before DEFRA!
Calling in favours for all those Tory votes, perhaps?
Well said Mark. This is hardly surprising after a venture capitalist developer was put in charge of Natural England.
The weird thing may be that he actually believes that guff about the heroic nature of grouse moor owners. They probably do feel they’re victims and that it’s about time somebody stood up for them, poor darlings.
I wonder what things would be like if upper class children – boys especially – were treated with respect and kindness instead of being sent into exile into those places of institutionalised bullying known as public schools. Would they learn empathy at last?
Perhaps we need to defend the human rights of the aristocracy a bit more. That may be one reason, indeed, why the Conservatives hate the Human Rights Act. They may believe consciously that being beaten at school ‘never did me any harm’ but perhaps deep down they want revenge on their tormentors – by the perverse method of making sure that other people are tormented.
i think there’s a lot of truth in what you say, Rowan Adams. I hadn’t looked at the situation from that angle before. I suppose I had wanted to believe that the Englsh public school system had changed with the times…..foolish of me…..
Empathy can be taught to even the most hardened of people, but I’m afraid greed for ever more wealth is something that is much more difficult to get people to relinquish; that, and the true understanding of class other than “upper”!
I feel that every time David Cameron mentions his dead son; nemesis on the NHS … exploitative and distasteful, at the very least