Sometimes something is so awful that you just hope it will go away – and that’s how I feel about the Defra Hen Harrier InAction Plan which fails to address the real problem for the Hen Harrier – that it is illegally killed by grouse shooting interests because it eats Red Grouse that they would like to kill themselves with shotguns.
But after a Christmas break, and thanks to a series of excellent blogs by those workaholic FoI experts, aka Raptor Persecution UK (see here, here and here), I guess we’d better think about the awful mess that Defra and Natural England are going to get into this year as they attempt to roll out their ‘plan’.
Re-introduction project into southern England
This has always seemed to me to be a waste of time. If Hen Harriers wanted to breed in southern England again then they would. There are occasional pairs which nest, often successfully, but nothing ever comes of it. This is a pretty big hint that it’s a long shot. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, but it isn’t going to be a simple thing like, in some ways, Red Kite reintroduction.
And we know that Hen Harriers go whizzing about all over the place through radio-tracking studies – even though NE has been exceptionally poor at publishing their very long term and costly study. We now know that Hen Harriers released or bred in southern England might well visit dangerous places like grouse moors and that Hen Harriers from the north of Britain can easily visit southern England and could stay to breed if they fancied it. These facts seem to have been glossed over in the feasibility study.
I see from the timeline of the study, though I guess that this is now out of date (and I bet it has gone backwards rather than forwards) that the plan is to submit a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for funding in March. I wonder whether that will happen, and I wonder what level of consultation NE and Defra envisage carrying out before submitting a bid that will compete with other conservation projects. The make-up of the project group hardly looks like a list of independent experts. I think we should all ask to see the project details and let HLF know what we think of the proposal if this project team (including three NE staff and an NE Board member) does submit an application. After all, shooters were keen to give HLF their views on the far less contentious Skydancer project back in 2011 (see Inglorious p147-48). Is this a Defra project? I don’t think Defra can apply for HLF funding. Is this an NE project? If so, why hasn’t NE invited some independent experts onto the project board to ensure rigour? Is it a project led by somebody else? If so, who? And if so, why is NE putting so much effort into getting it funded by you and me (you may love it, but I think it is a rank waste of my taxes)? How many of the project team are set to gain financially if HLF are persuaded to fund the project? Or if anyone else funds it? It all seems very cosy for such a contentious, and I would expect very expensive, project.
Brood meddling
But a rather pointless and costly reintroduction project is nothing compared with brood meddling. We are told that the plan is to go ahead with trial brood meddling this year – despite the slight drawback that there might not be any Hen Harriers nesting in England if recent years are anything to go by.
We know that the RSPB is set against brood meddling and so there will be the faint sound of a foot inside a soft shoe being stamped in Sandy if brood meddling goes ahead but what forms of peaceful legal protest might actually have some impact? We ought to think about it.
A judicial review of the decision to do a risky trial, with little scientific support, on a novel technique when a threatened species is miles away from favourable conservation status might be a good place to start.
[registration_form]
I have just been browsing the IUCN guidelines on species translocation. They state that release sites should be adequately isolated from sub- optimal or non-habitat areas which might be sink areas for the population.
Until persecution has demonstrably stopped, that objective can’t be met. And if we could stop persecution we wouldn’t need translocation.
That sums it up nicely, Lyn!
I’d noticed that the date for the HLF application was March this year, so I was waiting to see if that looked liked happening. If so, I was hoping that everyone would bombard the HFL with e-mails pointing out the true picture. ( A suggested script may come in handy at that point, Mark!) I still get a lottery ticket each week, never with the expectation of winning (maybe ‘hope’!) but knowing that I am contributing to some great wildlife projects makes it worthwhile. But I would definately stop if this went ahead. (Maybe go back to smoking, as that would make more sense!!)
Will definitely do that – utter waste of money to accommodate illegal activity.
With wildlife tourism the fastest growing tourism in Scotland will there be any sites in Scotland where taking young Hen Harriers does not weaken the potential of sightings for visitors and tour operators? The islands may seem a great place to take harriers but each one now have a ‘price tag’ on the bird so they are out. May I suggest that all young harriers are taken from Red Grouse moors so like in England the moors need to produce them in the first place!
It’s quite interesting how the southern reintroduction already seems to be working wonders in drawing attention to itself. In time, once the press pick this up and the southern project becomes a ‘big thing’, this ‘good news’ story will probably take the lion’s share of public attention. Job done!
In so many ways this proposal seems outside HLF’s guidelines, not least because its delivering government’s statutory responsibilities and because it does not follow best practice or have informed community support.
If we want to lobby (and I think we do in some way – but see below) we need to know the grant stream and when the application goes in.
My guess is that it’s a Heritage Grant for over £100k. There’s no other grant stream that fits, assuming they need over £100k. HLF has the mechanisms to make bespoke grants for major projects but that would really be grabbing a very hot political potato if they did that for this project. It would be extraordinary and a huge corporate reputational risk for them and PR liability for Defra and the shooting lobby in the circumstances. NB in this unlikely event it would go to the same group of trustees and so still be open to lobbying by us anyway.
OK, so let’s assume it’ll be a Heritage Grant. The criteria state that;
“Outcomes for heritage:
With our investment, heritage will be: better managed / in better condition / better interpreted and explained identified/recorded
Outcomes for people:
With our investment, people will have: developed skills / learnt about heritage / changed their attitudes and/or behaviour / had an enjoyable experience / volunteered time
Outcomes for communities:
With our investment: negative environmental impacts will be reduced more people and a wider range of people will have engaged with heritage / your local area/community will be a better place to live, work or visit / your local economy will be boosted / your organisation will be more resilient
As a minimum, we expect projects to achieve the following: For projects requesting less than £2million: one outcome for heritage; and one outcome for people; and one outcome for communities. For projects requesting £2million or more: more than one outcome for heritage; and more than one outcome for people; and more than one outcome for communities.”
Looking at these in turn;
Heritage – better managed is a very political (large and small “P”) judgement in this case. In better condition is easier to justify but only if one ignores its role as a distraction from the illegal persecution issue. Better interpreted is interesting given the reluctance of NE, as one of the main partners, to publish existing satellite tagging data.
People – developed skills etc implies a volunteer base and popular support. Good luck with that one, HOT. Change of attitudes or behaviour is also a big ask in this political context – “hug a harrier” being a difficult message to convey to the target audience of large landowners, and the exact opposite of what they desire when it comes to the public (who the grouse shooters want to remain in ignorance).
Communities – all these criteria rely on a high level of public awareness, which is precisely what the pro grouse shooting lobby wish to avoid. Every single event, every press release, is an opportunity for us to discuss wildlife crime. The story will change quickly because our story is so much more compelling.
My conclusion is that Defra really haven’t thought through the implications of HLF funding, esp as regards PR. Even if they can strong-arm HLF into agreeing to fund the project, we can very easily make it an enormous PR own goal.
As to when – that’s confidential between the applicant and HLF. Only successful applications are publicised. However, the advantage for us is that Heritage Grants are decided nationally, not regionally, and the meeting dates and decision cycle is publicly available information.
Now I suspect that HLF would not take kindly to a mass lobby opposing a presumed application, but I’m certain they wouldn’t appreciate it if an organisation like RSPB was behind it. There’s both a personal and corporate relationship risk for such an NGO, and HLF is the last big funder left in town so RSPB would be stupid to p*** them off. Also there would be a clear conflict of interest given that RSPB will no doubt be bidding into the same limited pot of money. So, the lobby can’t be organised by any of the established NGOs even if they did have the will to intervene directly. (NB this doesn’t necessarily stop eg RSPB writing a quiet letter of their own, setting out why they don’t support the plan, it’s just that they cannot be public about it).
So I think that puts the ball back into Mark and Chris’s court. Sorry guys. Find out who the chair of the Heritage Committee is and when the meeting dates are, assume a March submission, and decide whether to write quietly yourselves or organise a mass lobby.
Tough decision, we cannot be sure what would be most likely to succeed, but for my 2d worth from my experience HLF Trustees are pretty well informed and more likely to welcome discreet information than respond to public pressure. If they are *seen to* back down in the face of public lobbying the precedent would be very damaging for them and every other good cause the Daily Mail doesn’t approve of (ie most of them!). We should be careful what we wish for.
So all things considered, personally I’d go for the quiet and polite not the public and loud, and for a smal numbers of letters from the likes of Mark and Chris, not a mass email bombardment.
Having read the feasibility study and then the timeline of the study I can only shake my head in disbelief. Mark you say “I guess we’d better think about the awful mess that Defra and Natural England are going to get into this year as they attempt to roll out their ‘plan’.” Well I think both parties NE and Defra are already in a huge mess, but we all know that don’t we.
The main challenge is going to be countering all the misinformed, glowing publicity that an introduction project is likely to generate. Most of the general public will be totally unaware of the background issues and even a few birdwatchers will be seduced into thinking it’s a good idea to have these birds nesting in their ‘back yard’ so to speak.
I hope no country is going to provide young harriers for this sham & I certainly trust the Scottish Raptor Study Groups would object to any thought of birds being taken from their country.