I am grateful to the Northants Library Service for such good service. The 18 January copy of Country Life arrived at Higham Ferrers on Saturday and I had a look at it on Sunday morning.
Apparently Andrew Sells wrote to NE staff highlighting six priorities:
- more Hen Harriers in England – but I guess that means an expensive reintroduction programme and falling over oneself to facilitate a wrong-headed brood meddling scheme, and it certainly doesn’t seem to extend to being at all communicative with the taxpayer about what NE is doing or how ‘their’ tagged Hen Harriers are faring or what they died of (and see this RPUK blog too). We’ve seen too much NE inaction to believe that they are much of a part of a Hen Harrier recovery in our uplands.
- tougher penalties for wildlife crime – interesting as this is not really NE’s remit, is it?
- the introduction of Conservation Covenants – interesting
- a more enlightened approach to species protection and licensing – hmmm! Licences to kill natural predators preying on non-native gamebirds?
- reformed farm support – needed, but what reform?
- completion of England coastal path – why isn’t it completed now?
Rather worryingly NE’s Chair thinks ‘We need to move away from static protection of species and sites’ and build functioning ecological networks. I’m afraid that ‘moving away from static protection etc’ actually means ‘moving away from protection etc’ and will be very suspicious of government and its agencies on this subject. Building functioning ecological networks is trendy jargon and I’d like Mr Sells to point his finger at half a dozen examples of existing models of good practice – a Guest Blog is at his disposal here (although I completely understand this is hardly Country Life).
The trouble is, NE has positioned itself as a friend of developers, land owners and shooters and has almost completely turned its back on nature conservation and the public. We no longer trust it, no longer respect it and no longer like it. We no longer believe it is working for the public good.
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When government agencies are this crooked, it must be leadership by example. The government are literally telling us to become involved in Mafia like organisations. Crime pays!
Well they are trying to introduce legislation to have snitches whacked (well, imprisoned for 14 years at least). Embarrassing the government should never be a crime!
Of course crime pays. For the police, judiciary, prison service, lawyers, solicitors, insurance industry, security industry. Most of their jobs would go without crime, so it’s essential to have a thriving criminal community labouring dishonestly 24/7 to maintain not only their own families in the manner to which they have become accustomed but also those of the aforementioned and to justify the teaching of Latin, because you have to have it for the Judging. There is no likely end to crime even if crime prevention officers were effective because the Gubmint’s main job after wasting our money is to create new crimes so that criminals always have new challenges to rise to and keep the pump of due process primed.
I suggest we all write to Mr Sells and ask him to re-word this policy as ‘move OUT from static protection to build functioning ecological networks.’
And maybe he would like to pin his salary to the number of fledged Hen Harriers in England next year ? After all, these are the people who believe so deeply in performance pay. On 2016 performance, that would probably mean paying over a large chunk of it to FC chair Sir Harry Studholme.
Like Roderick’s suggestion that we all write to Mr Sells re: HHs and indeed NE role in conservation.
Who would be a good target for the justification for the cool half million meddling endeavour? And will any payments depend on ‘hitting targets’ ;( ? Performance related payments would see some NE / defra staff paying the public purse?
Estimate at least a handful of dislikes for suggesting NE senior management not fit for purpose?
Is the NE satellite tag data open to an FOI ? Or would it be exempt?
Likewise all minutes/correspondence regarding its (non) publication?
Having not read the article (and not being employed by NE) I obviously can’t say for sure but “reformed farm support” is almost certainly talking about the change from the current agri-env schemes to the new model that was just introduced. I’m sure someone can correct me if I’m wrong but I think the first of the new policies started in January. I suspect that “reformed support” will be referring particularly to helping farmers transition from existing schemes into the new model, but again I can’t say for sure.
If you want a bit more information on this then I would have a look on the Soil Association’s website here: https://www.soilassociation.org/news/2016/march/31/countryside-stewardship/