Roundup

5 Replies to “Roundup”

1. Henry Morris was absolutely outstanding on Radio Lancashire! Charlie Jacoby even on his best form in the debate with you Mark showed the lack of knowledge, eloquence and basic ability to process information properly (or pretend he can’t) that typifies the ‘hunting’ community. If anybody wants to see Jacoby in more typical stance I’d recommend ‘A Packham of Porky Pies’ the Fieldsports Channel’s riposte to the series of films that Chris self financed about illegal shooting in Malta. Henry on the other hand was intelligent and had a restrained, justified anger that said so very much compared to Jacoby’s petulance of a little boy whose favourite toy could be taken away from him because he won’t tidy his room. Henry summed up grouse moor lobbyists beautifully when he said ‘they’ll argue black is white’, I really hope he becomes a major figure spreading the word he’s an even better communicator than he is an ultra marathon runner. He nailed it.

   Plantlife seemed to have set a rather shallow definition of rewilding up as a straw man to underline how absence of large mammal activity can seriously reduce diversity. Re-establish boar and beaver and you’re doing one hell of a lot to introduce forms of disruption from bare patches of soil to standing deadwood that create exactly the types of microhabit Plantlife mention. Add in analogues for the extinct wild horses and cattle in the form of (slightly) domesticated breeds as at Knepp and various RSPB reserves and….well you’re already doing what Plantlife suggests you do and that rewilding doesn’t, but…um, actually is. I’m a tad disappointed in Plantlife over this, seems to be exploiting misinformation thrown around by reactionary politicians and farmers about rewilding when it’s the best hope all our wildlife’s got if it’s not to be restricted to tiny pockets of land requiring constant, intensive care. Ben MacDonald made a similar criticism of some of Buglife’s public comments about rewilding. We can also point out double standards – the traditional water, hay meadow and chalk grassland held up to us as brilliant wildlife habitat are in fact themselves missing micro habitats. Where are the areas of bare earth, patches of bramble, piles of deadwood and bit of scrub here and there that would add enormously to species diversity and structural complexity? Enclosing hedgerows aren’t the same thing/enough IMHO. A big hay meadow is a massive improvement on a fertilised field of rye grass, but looks like a very flowery lawn rather than a full habitat without those ‘untraditional’, but natural elements. Or maybe I’m just a pedantic old fart and somebody needs to take me to the vet to be put out of my misery? I dare not ask for a show of hands over that.

2. I agree with you, Les. Plantlife have been publishing this type of nonsense for a while now, especially in regards to ‘forest productivity’, where they have absolutely no concept of wild nature. This is further shown in the linked article. The idea that a hay meadow is anywhere near as biodiverse as a fully functioning deciduous native forest, with accompanying micro habitats, fringe, scrub, and shelter for a whole host of mammals, is simply laughable. It’s a sad state of affairs when climax woodland, of which we have so little, is used as a pejorative. There is also absolutely no comparison between carbon sequestration potential of these two habitats. That isn’t to say we should not create more meadows, but we will never develop future ancient woodland whilst ridiculous comments about ‘land abandonment’ (which are often incredibly biodiverse successional habitats, from scrub to climax woodland) are used to completely neuter rewilding concepts. A very disappointing and narrow minded article.

   1. I had hoped this wasn’t any more than a slight blip, very disturbed to hear it isn’t, but not surprised. I get a feeling some are trying to ingratiate themselves with vested interests so they can get a few crumbs off the table. I was listening to a recorded talk about rewilding where most speakers and the audience were from traditional farming or ‘fieldsports’ sectors. It was appalling. Not only is the ludicrously bloated red deer population harming conservation, farming and forestry projects it’s also seriously injuring and killing more people in road accidents. The John Muir Trust was lambasted at the talk because they had the temerity to carry out a decent cull on THEIR land which supposedly, somehow inconvenienced neighbouring estates. How dare the JMT think saving the last scraps of ancient forest from over grazing and potentially saving people from having a red deer come through their windscreen is more important than maybe even slightly compromising estates having lots of deer and no trees for easy stalking!!! Then there was the crofter lamenting bringing animals back we’d lost like the sea eagle, and of course wildlife already flourishes where crofters are allowed to do their thing without interference, they know the land and care for it! And so it went on and on and at the end the prime rewilding rep promised the audience that absolutely nothing was going to happen without their say so – and that amounted to absolutely nothing from what I heard. Looks like the majority of Scotland is going to continue as a paradise for those who see it as a place for putting metal into grouse, deer, pheasant or salmon, and for subsidy ranching. It was also very significant that Charlie Jacoby tried to malign rewilding in his talk with Mark, repeatedly. I really, really wish that in any discussion about change the slightly awkward fact that we’re throwing away a third of our food was brought up before the supposed conflict between farming and conservation is broached (I noticed Trevor Dines didn’t when on Gardener’s World yesterday). Are we to continue subsidising marginal farming when we’re simultaneously chucking 12.5 billion quid’s worth of nosh? I’d rather see real forests than bare hills with more wildlife and less flooding myself, and public money saved from spurious subsidy and reduced wastage could go the NHS instead. Couldn’t we frame the debate more like that, isn’t this a democracy where we can do that, why we wear red or white poppies? In Scotland the Tay beavers are being held up in some quarters as nothing more than a dire agricultural pest so that a corner of a tattie field getting damp is the crucial issue, not eventually that with enough of them in the right places along with trees and peat bog restoration far fewer homes, the places where people live as opposed to stick seed potatoes in the ground, along with businesses and… fields will NOT be flooded. No problem people being killed by a deer on the road or their front room becoming a swimming pool as long as they’re not ‘country’ people clearly. There’s going to have to be a social change before we can enact rewilding, that’s finally stop kowtowing to a bunch who are little more than vociferous con artists and in reality don’t give a shit for anybody or anything that doesn’t put dosh in their accounts. I know I’ve met some of them, and I’ve had enough of the bastards.

3. Hi Les,

   Henry here. Thank you for your nice words. I think i had an advantage though, in that it’s quite easy to sound articulate when you’re talking common sense.

   Cheers all the same!

4. No you were very bloody good Henry. A thoughtful, well informed, conscientious and articulate human being with an element of justified indignation at what’s been going on and what the people doing it are like. Once you know what’s going on it’s impossible to turn away isn’t it? The smarmy, paid spokespillocks from the other side sound just what they are when compared to you. You said everything that needed to be said and that the whole thing is a massive affront to society came across really well. Since you mentioned that the moors could be used for so much more I’ve pasted in this link – the petition should be restarted very soon – in case you haven’t seen it, and there’s another guest blog from Ben MacDonald on the 19th of April this year that does a fantastic job of demolishing the ‘economic’ case for driven grouse shooting. Thanks and all the best. https://markavery.info/2018/09/27/guest-blog-driven-grouse-shooting-your-bluffs-been-called-by-les-wallace/

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