Dear Councillor Love,
I write to you because you are the chair of Bradford Council’s Environment & Waste Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee regarding the review of whether to allow burning to be included in the Ilkley Moor Management Plan.
I am not a Bradford resident but I am a frequent visitor to the area. Also I am a member of the Labour Party and am disturbed at the fact that it is a Labour Council which is the only one in the country allowing driven grouse shooting on public land. Also, I have some standing in this matter having published a book on why we should ban driven grouse shooting.
BMDC currently allows gamekeepers to set strips of heather on the moor ablaze as part of its intensive management for grouse shooting. Why? The practice causes an artificial boom in red grouse, causing bird numbers to increase up to one-hundred times their normal density, solely for the benefit of recreational grouse shooting.
Burning involves torching large areas of heather and damages the uplands, which are of high conservation value. Negative environmental impacts include soil erosion, decreased water quality, air pollution and a drop in overall biodiversity. Burning is a major contributor to unfavourable condition in blanket bog habitats and is the reason for a complaint to the EU against the UK government by the RSPB.
The Ilkley Moor Management Plan exists to ensure the moor is maintained for the benefit of the public in a way which conserves wildlife, habitat and archaeology. The negative impacts caused by burning are clearly incompatible with such an aim. I would urge you instead to implement cutting as the technique for heather management. You should also stop grouse shooting on this moor and cosnider other more environmentally sustainable management options that would provide greater public benefits.
I have put a copy of my book, Inglorious – conflict in the uplands, in the post to the chair of your committee .
And, while we’re at it, please note that an e-petition calling on the government to ban driven grouse shooting has gathered over 23,000 signatures in just three months.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Mark Avery
[registration_form]
Mark, RE cutting as an alternative. I’ve had that suggested to me as an alternative to grazing on lowland commons, generally by the Open Spaces Society as part of their objection to fencing applications. Grazing often has other advantages anyway, but in one case I had to restrain myself from writing back to them to point out that when the little brown lines on the map are very close together it means that the land is very steep… I don’t know Ilkley Moor at all, but are you quite sure that mowing is a practical alternative? Not too many rocks, gullies, etc? Just for the sake of not looking as silly as the OSS was!
If blanket bog is functioning properly then there shouldn’t be any need to cut or burn, in fact both shouldn’t really be feasible.
On minerals soils I can’t say I’m opposed to some judicious rotational burning in certain situations, it does provide some benefits. A 40-50 year cycle seems about right, avoiding areas at high risk of erosion.
From Friends of Ilkley Moor website:-
“In 1893, the Ilkley Local Board bought Ilkley Moor from Marmaduke Francis Middleton for the then enormous sum of £13,500. The reason for the purchase was that there was seen to be a conflict between the shooting interests (represented by Middleton) and the rights of the public to enjoy the Moor. That decision resonates today.”
Oh, the irony!! One hundred and twenty years later our local politicians have sold out.
I am emailing these people too.
Handy. I have also emailed, removing the last bit of the first paragraph and replacing with ‘Unlike Mark Avery, I have not written a book on the matter. However, I have read Inglorious and recommend it as an excellent summary of the issues around the impact of driven grouse shooting on our upland environment.’
This parliamentary answer given yesterday by Rory Stewart (DEFRA PuS), in a reply to Jim Shannon MP DUP, concerning the value of grouse shooting, is a direct copy and paste from the Moorland Association website.
What can we do to stop ministers quoting from shooting industry contrived data?
“Government does not hold information on the value of shooting to the economy.
According to the Moorland Association (www.moorlandassociation.org/grouse-shooting-economics/), in England grouse moor management creates 42,500 work days a year and is responsible for over 1,500 full-time posts. Of these, 700 are directly involved in grouse moor management, with a further 820 jobs in related services and industries.
The Moorland Association also state that each year owners and sporting tenants of their 175 member grouse moors in England and Wales spend a combined total of £52.5 million on land management.
The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (http://basc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/03/Research-White-Paper-Grouse-shooting-and-management.pdf) estimate the annual value of game meat in the UK as £61 million, with the retail value per bird varying between £6.50 and £12 per animal”.
Had a reply from Cllr Love:
Dear Susan,
Thank you for your email. The committee will be discussing the Ilkley Moor Management Plan on 3rd November and will take into consideration your comments.
Mark Avery has kindly sent me a copy of his book which I am currently in the process of reading.
Regards
Martin
(Chair)
Hope he finds the book as informative as I did.
Bradford may be the only Labour Council in England allowing driven grouse shooting on public land, but the Joint Committee of the three local authorities which administer the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park in west central Scotland allows it. Currently there are no active driven shoots, but this is down to lack of commercial viability due to a shortage of Red Grouse. However the Regional Park management has recently been engaged in discussions with an English college and a local landowner with a view to entering a partnership to regenerate grouse shooting within the Park, which would involve a significant part of this public asset becoming a training ground for in excess of a dozen apprentice gamekeepers. They are attempting to entice the RSPB into the partnership by pretending this is an exercise to help Hen Harriers, and by including an insignificant small area of blanket bog regeneration. This is being promoted of course as a project which will generate substantial inward investment to the local economy. Not surprisingly the proposal is controversial, especially as we have entered a new era when the public at large is becoming more aware of the cruelty, environmental harm and illegal persecution of raptors associated with the grouse shooting industry. An alternative plan to manage the moorland positively for Hen Harriers and wider biodiversity, proposed by the local SOC Branch and the local Raptor Study Group, has been rejected without serious consideration. The site is a Special Protection Area for breeding Hen Harriers, but has been seriously damaged by muirburn, drainage and overgrazing, and has a history of persistent harrier persecution. I believe that the regeneration of grouse shooting would be a massive step in the wrong direction, particularly in a public Regional Park.