In the same response to DEFRA in which the Moorland Association set out their shopping list for stopping damaging upland areas, they asked DEFRA a number, in fact 14 is the number, of questions about what they call the policy context. The actual policy context for stopping burning peatlands is the damage to blanket bogs that has got the UK into trouble with the European Commission over non-compliance with the Habitats Directive, and now the context of protecting all upland peatlands for climate change reasons.
Here are the Moorland Association’s 14 questions and, slightly light-heartedly, how DEFRA should have answered them (although a two word answer would probably have sufficed):
Look it up here for a start but it really doesn’t matter how much there is, the fact is that your members’ activities have got us into trouble over non-compliance with a conservation directive (as we’ve already told you several times) and which, incidentally, the Prime Minister’s father (that’s Stanley) actually wrote.
It’s pretty crap really – not just because of burning but because of widespread illegal persecution of protected wildlife by grouse moor managers. The people who light the fires are sometimes the people who shoot the protected raptors. You know that and you have failed to sort that out too. Don’t get on your high horse with us when your members’ management decisions keep drawing attention to how piss-poor government’s conservation and environmental delivery really is. You may well want to discuss blanket bog damage, wildlife crime, water quality, flood risk and carbon emissions separately but they are all part of the same management regime. Can you wonder that we have to clamp down when you keep drawing the public’s attention to all these problems – go figure! As you well know, the ‘favourable or recovering’ has a particular meaning. ‘Recovering’ doesn’t mean actually recovering it means that there is a plan in place which might lead to its recovery some time in the future. Some of those plans are the very management plans and consents which we are now planning to revoke. You should look up what proportion of the land is actually in favourable condition. Start with the Bowland Fells SSSI in Lancashire – we think you may have some members there. There, 85% of the SSSI area is Favourable or Unfavourable recovering (see here) but that breaks down as 5% Favourable and 80% Unfavourable though allegedly (see above) recovering, and of course that leaves 15% Unfavourable Declining. Your question is only worthy of an anonymous social media troll, not of a serious body.
We’ve already done this, remember? Blanket bogs? Your members breaking their words on the voluntary agreement? EU infraction? Damage to blanket bogs? For a refresher – click here. Also, since your consultation response you will have noticed that the Committee on Climate Change has called for a cessation of burning on all peatlands, not just blanket bogs and not just deep peats this very year. You must have noticed this because you welcomed it, ‘… moorland managers are wholly committed to combating climate change’ and then tried to undermine it – see here. And it’s a bit foolish of you to draw attention to the fact that your pastime of shooting Red Grouse for fun is responsible for 2% of all English emissions. That certainly makes it look like a good place to start – a pointless hobby practised by very few people with very high emissions! Thanks for pointing that out but maybe you ought to employ a public relations professional.
Burning may not always be the single cause of deterioration of site integrity, but it often is a cause. It doesn’t have to be the only one for us to want to sort this out. And we’ll be coming after you on other issues soon too. Obviously we don’t have to look at it site by site – we know the impacts from studies and observations and that’s enough to apply that knowledge more widely.
Remember? The damage to blanket bogs?
Remember? The blanket bogs? The carbon? The flood risk? The water quality?
Well, they don’t have the problems attached to them that burning has – capeesh?
Crikey, I think we’ve reached half way.
Your unnaturally high populations of Red Grouse are hosts for ticks aren’t they? Ever thought of reducing stocks by 50%? That would help. And all those Pheasants released in the uplands these days, or on the upland edge, they are a massive reservoir of ticks and the bacterium that causes Lyme disease – ask the GWCT, they’ve written papers about it. If you’d like to send us any scientific papers which show the reduction in Lyme disease thanks to burning we’ll have a look at them.
Do you have one? Remember we have to protect priority habitats – those blanket bogs? Remember? And floods? And water quality? And the proposal of the Climate Change Committee for an end to burning of all peatlands this year?
Why do you ask? A bit of rewilding of cloughs and cliffs would be a great thing don’t you think?
Have you heard of cattle? But not all areas need to be grazed, and restoring wetlands to their former extent will provide lots of good habitat.
I don’t accept the premise of your question. You seem to be finding it difficult to grasp that your management of the land has been so awful that almost anything would be better.
Less extreme management on a range of fronts would improve site integrity. Start getting used to the idea…
We’ll talk to you about that but you must start facing the future not the past. The world has to change and your list of questions just makes you look like a crusty bunch of landowners stuck in a mindset more suited to an earlier century (and not necessarily one as recent as the 20th!). Your questions are just diversionary tactics and they don’t make you look good. Grow up and be proper stakeholders otherwise it’s pretty clear that change will be forced upon you rather than you having any real say in it. And I’d point out to you, that at present you have a government that is, shall we say, quite favourable to you – that won’t last forever.
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