Wuthering Moors 78 – NE and Defra must act

This post is about damaging tracks, past and present, on protected moorland. I’d like to take you back in time on Walshaw Moor. This photograph was posted on this blog in Wuthering Moors 39, 13 September 2013.  I pointed out that this place was marked on the OS map as a stream but now (in…

Wuthering Moors 77 – a track going nowhere

Introduction: This post is about a track that a grouse shooting estate wants to build across their grouse moor.  The land is designated because of its nature conservation importance. I, with the help of some very clever lawyers and the financial support of many of you, have stopped this track being built once on the…

Wuthering Moors 76 – more moor burning

Michael Gove has asked moorland owners to be good boys (and girls – although all the landowners in the room at the time were actually men) and to stop damaging blanket bogs through burning  them.  Burning is carried out so that men (and a few women) can shoot lots of Red Grouse for fun as…

Wuthering Moors 75 – six long years of complaining

Six years ago today the RSPB made its complaint to the European Commission about burning practices at Walshaw Moor and many other driven grouse moors in the UK (See Wuthering Moors 28, 15 October 2012). The RSPB deserves great respect for this important move (even though it is very quiet about it itself these days)….

Wuthering Moors 74 – lessons unlearned

I am grateful to several Natural England staff who have found ways to send me a document recently posted on the NE intranet, but written in March 2013, entitled Walshaw Moor Lessons Learned Action Plan. Considering this document is over five years old, it is of mostly historic interest to very few people, however, there…