No-one could look across this landscape and see a natural one. It is burned to bits!
This management is solely carried out so that there are lots of Red Grouse that rich people can shoot.
Grouse moor management leads to increased flood risk, reduced aquatic life, higher water treatment costs, damage to protected habitats and is underpinned by persecution of protected birds of prey.
For more natural, more sustainable, more useful and yes, more beautiful uplands, please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. It closes at midnight tomorrow (Thursday) – so please do it now. Already, over 30,000 people from all over the UK have signed it.
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Which moor is this? Our fell at Stanhope is being ruined by these little squares of burning.
It’s not damaged landscape, it will end up back to what you twats call normal if left alone! Not damaged but managed
Yes it is damaged, and it doesn’t do much for rivers either. Read Leeds university’s EMBER report, might help you extend your vocabulary too.
Do you have ****ing ****s in your vocabulary? You need to to know who you are
Ted – that’s very rude of you, thank you.
It’s certainly managed – managed half to death!
I live and work in the uplands and am increasingly disheartened by the amount of damage being caused to a precious natural resource in the name of grouse shooting. I don’t actually object to sustainable rough shooting of an unmanaged Red Grouse population but am appalled by the industrial scale desecration of the uplands.
A lot of the upland moors hold SSSI and European level designation such as SPA / SAC because they used to support internationally important numbers of species such as Merlin. If I want to carry out management on a moorland SPA the proposal has to be tested by law by NE or SNH as part of the Habitat Regulations Assessment (HRA) process. If the proposed activity is ‘necessary to the conservation management of the site’ it is exempt from HRA, if not it is classed as a ‘plan or project’ which must then undergo the Likely Significant Effect test. If the assessment concludes that there will be a likely negative impact on the listed features of the SPA by itself or in combination with any other factors it fails the test and triggers the next stage, Appropriate Assessment, where options are explored to mitigate or compensate the impacts. If you can’t offset the damage or provide on-site compensation the proposal cannot be allowed.
If you take the proposal as ‘intensive burning of European habitat to support artificially high numbers of Red Grouse for commercial shooting’ I don’t think it will pass. There’s no way you can justify what they are doing as ‘necessary’ for the conservation of the site and there’s no doubt the management is degrading features such as Merlin by removing breeding opportunities, never mind the degree of illegal persecution that is rife amongst NGO members. Why has nobody done a HRA on grouse moor management? Because corporate NE are scared of the answer, advisers in the local teams are aware of and frustrated by the issues but the people at the top are either unwilling to make a stand or influenced by their own conflicts of interest as some senior staff make financial gains from shooting. The bias of many members of the current government also goes without saying. And the amount of subsidy paid to the shooting estates from public money via HLS is obscene.
Congratulations with your e-petition Mark, it demonstrates that you are leaning against an open door with public opinion, but I suspect banging your head against a brick wall with DEFRA and their masters. I’ll sign it again next year and hope some of our prominent wildlife charities get off their hands as well.