I’ve praised Guy Shrubsole’s adroitness with the information request before – here are some more products of the information requester’s art.
As a start, there is more to come, I’ll post here three letters between the Moorland Association and DEFRA from last late summer.
They all relate to burning of heather as part of the management regime for generating ridiculously, and unnaturally, high densities of Red Grouse for the purpose of shooting them out of the air for fun.
This is the first letter, from Nick Downshire to DEFRA;
Apparently the Moorland Association is committed to sustainable management of moorlands to ensure their ecological integrity and (although one could almost imagine ‘provided’ being in their minds) ‘sustainable, traditional rural practices’ are maintained. That’s big of them. Lack of raptors, increased greenhouse gas emissions, reduced water quality and increased flood risk suggest that the traditional rural practices to which the Moorland Association most cling are not so sustainable after all. But it’s a fair enough letter from a vested interest group.
Let’s see how DEFRA responded;
Civil servants are very good at this type of thing. Note that the second and third paragraphs (from ‘I would like to start…’ to ‘…in the English uplands.’ say ‘moorland managers were given time to get their act together and you didn’t, so now we are doing what we said we’d do because otherwise we’ll be up sh*t creek with the EU because a bunch of bird-shooters can’t toe the line when asked, told and given time to do so’.
Nick then comes back with the following reply, although it wasn’t immediate, it was rather tardy actually, because presumably he and some of his ‘phone-a-friend’ contacts were out shooting Red Grouse.
This is just the Moorland Association trying to delay anything and everything.
I’m interested in the redactions at the end of this last letter. I have asked DEFRA for details of those ‘studies’ or whatever they are as it is rather unusual for redactions of what are presumably attempts to be matters of fact on which the Moorland Association hope that DEFRA will make some decisions.
There’s more to come…
[registration_form]
Noticeable that the MA were making most of the ‘study’ by Ashby and Heinemeyer that attempted to discredit EMBER. I wish I could find and paste in the response from EMBER’s authors that didn’t pull any punches as to why this was a load of rubbish. No matter the MA and friends have a ‘scientific’ report that they can now refer to that questions EMBER’s findings – except that it really doesn’t it just tries to. Smoke and mirrors as usual, and more of the same to come by the looks of it.
Les I think this is what you are looking for:-
https://water.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2019/08/Contextualising-final.pdf
It does indeed shred the nonsense from Ashby and Heinemeyer in no uncertain terms. My own view is that all heather burning should be banned except that used to create firebreaks, the is no such thing in real terms as restorative burning. Restorative burning is about grouse management and nothing more. All the moors of the Nidderdale AONB have been busy burning of late. We need legislation to stop this, real rewetting including erosion restoration will reduce heather growth , promote genuine biodiversity. RSPB Dove Stone is a fine example.
Thanks!! The only legitimate reason I can think why someone would write a report criticising someone else’s research methods and data analysis is if they were quite seriously flawed. From my all be it layman’s viewpoint EMBER looked very sound and the authors made a point of not being judgemental or making any recommendations they just said they hoped that the findings would help land managers to make informed decisions in regard of muirburn. Fat thanks they got for it, instead their professionalism was called into question by people who neglected to mention their ‘work’ was sponsored by vested interests.
Hasn’t there been a recent report of muirburn out of control at the moment, distracting emergency services from vital safety work during this international emergency (Covid 19 pandemic) sweeping through the world.
To have practiced restraint would have demonstrated consideration for others, particularly those downwind as well as the wildlife which will be massacred (adders, early ground nesting birds including those they claim to conserve the uplands for eg. curlew)
Stay safe all 🙂