Defra firmly in the shooting camp.

There is a pro-grouse-shooting e-petition which is stumbling forward – it has almost reached 19,000 signatures after 7 weeks (in comparison, our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting got there in under half the time – who said driven grouse shooting is popular?).

Defra has just published its response to this e-petition which is as follows:
‘Grouse shooting is a legitimate activity that provides economic benefits, jobs and investment in some of our most remote areas and can offer important benefits for wildlife and habitat conservation.

A report by the UK shooting community (Public & Corporate Economic Consultants report 2014: The Value of Shooting) concludes that the overall environmental and economic impact of game bird shooting is positive; the industry has estimated that £250 million per year is spent on management activities substantially benefiting conservation. For grouse shooting in particular, according to the Moorland Association, estates in England and Wales spent £52.5 million on managing 149 grouse moors for shooting in 2010. Scottish landowners manage a further 150 moors for shooting grouse. The industry also supports 1,520 full time equivalent jobs and is worth £97.7 million across Great Britain.

Grouse shooting takes place in upland areas, which are important for delivering a range of valuable “ecosystem services”, including food and fibre, water regulation, carbon storage, biodiversity and recreational opportunities for health and wellbeing. The Government is committed to helping create a more sustainable future for the English uplands, including by protecting peatlands through measures such as the Peatland Code.

The Government welcomes the proactive approach taken by game keeping organisations to ensure a sustainable, mutually beneficial relationship between shooting and conservation, for example through the British Association for Shooting and Conservation’s green shoots initiative.

The Government recognises the benefits that grouse shooting, and shooting more widely, bring to individuals, the environment and the rural economy. It is for these reasons that the Government believes shooting and other country pursuits such as hunting and fishing should be protected.‘

We can see in this account little evidence that this government has taken on board the full range of evidence on the impacts of driven grouse shooting.  But there is some evidence that Defra is not feeling particularly bullish on this subject. That’s what happens when you shine a light on a subject.

There are some slightly interesting changes in detail since the response to our e-petition. Defra has lost 26 grouse moors in England and Wales since April (I think the current figure is correct)! And Defra now admits that the economic figures are six years out of date.  But grouse shooting still only contributes c£50m per annum to the economy it seems.  The impacts of floods, a bit more water treatment, some more greenhouse gas emissions, some loss of aquatic biodiversity and the robbing of millions of visitors to our uplands of their natural heritage are still not taken into account – perhaps because they dwarf the rather dodgy £50m per annum?  Defra has left itself some wriggle room. If only I felt confident that the opposition parties were going to make Defra wriggle in discomfort.

There is no attempt to claim that management for driven grouse shooting is of great conservation benefit and all that guff about the importance of predator control has been binned. Defra seem rather less certain of their ground than they used to be – and there is, of course, a different minister signing off the response, Therese Coffey instead of Rory Stewart, and a minister that will have to present the government case at the end of the debate.  The Defra response seems to have been written according to the instruction ‘Say as little as we can, and make it as similar as we can get away with to the other responses so that Rory doesn’t look bad’.

It probably is the case that government recognises the benefits of grouse shooting in its blinkered industry-supporting way. When it takes off its blinkers and incorporates the costs too, it will come to see that the benefits are outweighed by the costs and this argument will come tumbling down and be seen to be in pieces at ministers’ feet.

Then it will be time for Defra ministers to acknowledge that even the benefits that accrue from intensive grouse shooting are underpinned and depend upon wildlife crime. If we are now talking about a miscalculated £50m per annum (which ignores the costs) and that this depends on illegal activity then we have got pretty much to the nub of the argument. Driven grouse shooting is not legitimate and should be banned.

 

 

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