Dr Therese Coffey is the junior minister at Defra. Now that Gavin Gamble’s e-petition in favour of banning driven grouse shooting has passed 10,000 signatures Dr Coffey will need to sign off a government response.
In order that she does not make Defra look even more foolish than they do already I am providing a reading list for the minister to inform her response.
Please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and put Dr Coffey on the spot.
Dr Coffey, on this of all days, we need a reformation in the uplands of Britain.
Gavin Gamble is no Martin Luther but he has pinned his ‘many fewer than 95 theses’ to the door of his website and it falls to you to respond.
The most difficult issue for the grouse shooting industry to face is the high level of wildlife crime that necessarily underpins driven grouse shooting. This is an area that is not really in dispute given the level of science that demonstrates it and the level of disappearing raptors that testifies to it too.
Whereas your predecessors in Defra have stuck their heads in the sand over this issue, you can make a new start on this issue in your response to Gavin Gamble and acknowledge that wildlife crime associated with driven grouse shooting is a real conservation problem and that it needs to be brought to an end.
The Conservative Party, the government and Defra have positioned themselves as being soft on wildlife crime and soft on the causes of wildlife crime. You cannot in all honesty remain in your job with any respect if you maintain this position. It is time to stop indulging the grouse shooters and do your job – you are the biodiversity minister after all.
And yes, I used the word ‘indulging’ deliberately on this day. It was the outrage against the corrupt practice of the sale of indulgences that triggered the Reformation. It looks to many as though government wildlife policy is in hock to those rich Tory supporters who own grouse moors and go grouse shooting. Why else is Defra departing so far from what it ought to be doing other than the wish to indulge its friends and funders?
Unless your response to Gavin Gamble’s e-petition states clearly that wildlife crime must stop (and that raptor numbers will be taken as the measure of success of this) or else grouse shooting will face new strict regulatory measures, then we’ll assume that all Michael Gove’s words about being science-based and loving biodiversity for its own sake were completely empty.
Ignoring the 95 theses did the Catholic Church little good – ignoring the evidence for wildlife crime in the hills will mark Defra down as corrupt. We are watching and waiting, Dr Coffey.
Please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and put Dr Coffey on the spot.
The government response should:
- be published within 2 weeks of Gavin Gamble’s e-petition reaching 10,000 signatures
- announce that vicarious liability for wildlife crimes will be introduced in England because of the unacceptably high levels of wildlife crime
- announce that Defra will ask the RSPB to come forward with proposals for licensing of shooting estates within a month and that Defra will respond to them by Christmas
- acknowledge the level of concern about driven grouse shooting which led to 123,077 signatures being gained last year for an absolute ban on this hobby (I’m not expecting Dr Coffey to say anything nicer than that about a ban)
- confirm that Defra is looking at removal of farming subsidies from grouse moors in its post-Brexit agricultural strategy
- confirm that the evidence for wider environmental damage of heather burning has increased recently and that this is an issue that government will address and that this will require widespread changes to grouse moor management (burning and draining)
- mention where the government is with dealing with the RSPB complaint to the EU over unsustainable moorland management due to grouse shooting practices
- acknowledge that the plight of the Hen Harrier has not improved in two breeding seasons since the Defra Hen Harrier plan was launched and that the grouse shooting industry has not cleaned up its act and is on a last warning
- announce that the details of the 15-year Natural England Hen Harrier study will be published by Christmas 2017 in a government report with further recommendations for Hen Harrier conservation
- acknowledge that wildlife crime applies to many other protected species other than the Hen Harrier
- announce that the National Capital Committee has been asked to compile a report on ecosystem services and grouse moor management
- announce a review of the economic costs and benefits of intensive grouse moor management will be carried out by independent academics and published by Christmas 2018.
The government response should not:
- say that funding of the NWCU is a sufficient response to combatting bird of prey persecution in the uplands (because nobody who knows has ever suggested such a thing)
- say or suggest that grouse shooting provides a nett economic benefit to the nation (because there are no such figures)
- suggest that the current Hen Harrier Action Plan is remotely fit for purpose
- praise gamekeepers
- conflate benefits of all shooting (economic or environmental) with benefits of grouse shooting (because it makes the government department and/or its ministers look either stupid or biased)
Don’t hold back Mark. Tell it like it is.