In response to the e-action organised by Wild Justice, Hen Harrier Action and the RSPB, voters in England are beginning to receive, via their MPs, responses from DEFRA.
Having given DEFRA the opportunity to impress us all with their grasp of the subject and their fast pace of policy action these responses are very similar to those sent out in August despite it now being late October which is disappointing (but perhaps not surprising).
DEFRA is still saying that it is looking at how legislation can stop the habitat and climate damage caused by heather burning – it’s taking a very long time about it and even the man responsible, the Secretary of State for DEFRA, Mr Eustice, can’t, even now, say what is happening. Shambles or what?
Mr Eustice is still saying that the England Peat Strategy will be published this year but cannot in late October even hazard a stab at the month. Maybe we’ll see it next week but I wouldn’t bank on it which leaves November or December and the man in charge can’t plump for one at this late stage. It’s almost as though DEFRA doesn’t know what it is doing, or planning. If you had any confidence in the ability of this government to run a whelk stall, let alone some large policy issues, it would surely be slipping away very rapidly.
On a more positive note, we should be pleased, a little, that the government has found £40m for a green recovery fund which might do some good through protecting biodiversity and addressing climate change and, propping up jobs in the conservation sector.
The most interesting thing about this response is that DEFRA has noticed that Scotland exists and mentions the Werritty report. That’s another government response that is overdue – different government, same sloth-like progress (except the sloths’ slowness is an adaptation to the real world rather than an avoidance of it).
DEFRA is apparently watching the absence of action in Scotland very closely – that’s what they are doing is it? But the sentence ‘Once Scotland has announced its plans for implementations, we can consider the benefits, or otherwise, of regulatory alignments between the two jurisdictions.’ is interesting and new. It’s very sweet of DEFRA to defer to Scotland and wait for moves north of the border but I do wonder whether DEFRA is exerting pressure on Scotland not to do anything too radical because it will increase the pressure on DEFRA to do something itself. Surely between them, Roseanna Cunningham and Nicola Sturgeon are too much their own women to bow to English pressure or pleading.
DEFRA seems somewhat paralysed on all fronts.
I see Christmas Eve is a Thursday this year, that’s always a good day for an announcement.
What a load of “tosh”, taking all those words to say Defra are doing nothing. It amounts to an insult to all the people that took part in the e-action. Defra should be ashamed of themselves. It is depressing that they are still churning out the fallacious propaganda put forward by the shooters who shoot our wildlife for fun and who inflict so much persecution and horrors on our moorland wildlife and destroy its environment.
What they say in the letter and what really happen on our moorlands is about as widely different as the width of the Atlantic
It is rather pathetic the way they say they are watching what Scotland are going to do.
Keep fighting on this and we will win in the end and secure a much better deal for our moorland wildlife and the environment.
Fudge and prevarication. Either heather is burning or it isn’t. Either protected habitat is being destroyed or it isn’t. Either carbon is going into the air instead of into the ground.
All this foot-dragging is rather childish. The best response DEFRA has to offer is like school kid humming and hawing as they desperately try to think up of an excuse as to why they’re forgotten their homework.
This is sadly par for the course, DEFRA/ NE given an option to support change for the better in conservation but never in farming or making money for somebody always, always obfuscate, prevaricate and do the best part of nothing at all, so that nothing changes and somebody’s pals somewhere stifle both what is needed and democracy itself, it is entirely predictable, utterly shameful and corrupt to the core.
Claims of support for NWCU are weak to say the least £300k is hardly a huge sum or major endorsement. Couple this with the fact that Louise Hubble its most effective leader for sometime is being forced back to her county policing role rather than her contract at NWCU being renewed/extended further.
RPPDG for a long time was a joke a talking shop that made little if any progress loaded as it was with “countryside” rather than conservationist organisations. Then we get Nick Lyall and things suddenly get much better because he clearly cares about the wildlife crime and the birds themselves. Some of the countryside organisations take their bats and ball home in disgust and yet return to the table. Progress is made there is some hope that policing will finally get a grip etc. Then he is tripped and is it appears no more , nothing to do with policing and it should in reality be nothing to do with his police career either. Given these two events you might be forgiven for thinking of a conspiracy by those even now in various dark side organisations who attended RPPDG gloating at Nick’s downfall on social media.
The whole thing smells very badly of rotten fish. As to burning will or won’t the gov’t carry out its promise of stopping it against the wishes of all its pals in DGS, who knows, perhaps the Environment Audit and Climate Change Committees will have to put a lot of pressure on DEFRA.
Whatever happens the DEFRA responses to our hordes of emails is piss poor and would fail to pass any exam.
“Most wildlife crimes carry up to an unlimited fine and/or a custodial sentence…”
Perhaps the Right Hon Mr Eustice would care to comment on how many times the courts have availed themselves of these sentencing powers in relation to raptor persecution crimes in, say. the last five years. Or, to put it another way, does he think that the evidence suggests that these potential sentences are acting as an effective deterrent to the people who would rather not see hen harriers or peregrine falcons flying over their grouse moors?
only ‘phase out’ burning of blanket bog I notice, not ‘stop’ or ‘ban’. More weasel words (poor old weasels, or is it tribute to their craftiness?)
Sorry Mark but DEFRA have not “found” another £40m for green recovery. This is old money, already announced, but re-badged. This is becoming a common tactic with this government and a trap for the unwary.