Shared Planet is a stimulating programme and many people were stimulated to express their irritation over the latest programme about conflict resolution in nature conservation. The Hen Harrier/grouse shooting conflict was used as an example and was discussed by a variety of people – not a very wide variety of people however. It’s well worth…
Tag: grouse shooting
Letter to my MP
To Andy Sawford MP Dear Andy I hope this finds you well. I am writing to enlist your support in getting some information out of Defra – in fact, I wonder whether you could check whether anyone is at home in that department. I have made several FOI requests to Defra via my…
Postcards for the Queen
20,132 postcards for the Queen! This morning, Paul and Hilary from LUSH, and myself (since Chris Packham is out of the country) delivered a couple of boxes of postcards (the rest will follow later) to the Queen. Well, no, not directly to HM The Queen but to her house. And no, not to the front…
This is what it is like to be on the front foot.
The debate has changed dramatically over the last few months – let’s say since 28 May when this e-petition was launched to ban driven grouse shooting. In that time: M&S have been persuaded to change their mind about selling Red Grouse on their shelves until they can assure the world of the sustainability of…
Gamekeepers
Yesterday evening’s blog did not overflow with complimentary remarks about gamekeepers – it could have done, but it didn’t. An occupation which evokes such strong and negative responses has an image problem – and that is true however fair or unfair are the comments. We don’t hear that much from gamekeepers in the debates over…
Selfridges will not stock Red Grouse this year.
Selfridges have confirmed to their customers that they will not stock Red Grouse in their Food Hall. Good for them! Looks like I’ll have to get out my credit card. This was in response to an excellent letter from a reader of this blog which quoted from the Ethical Consumer report ‘Turn your back on…
Thin, very thin
The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust blog is reeling. Yesterday they were in a complete spin over the Leeds University study showing impacts of heather burning on soils, waters, emissions and biota – a pretty clean sweep of physics, chemistry, biology and backed up by quite a lot of maths. They got themselves into a…
An ecosystem disservice
The nature conservation case for driven grouse shooting is pretty much bankrupt and today’s significant report on the ecosystem disservices of rotational burning bangs home a wider point. If you live in a city or the country, shoot or don’t shoot, vote UKIP or Green, are vegan or live on raw meat, whoever you are…
Important new study on impacts of moorland burning on river catchments
The EMBER study by the University of Leeds (funded by NERC and Yorkshire Water) has been a five-year study of 10 river catchments – five that have lots of heather burning for driven grouse shooting and five that do not. The study area was the North Pennines. The British uplands collect and distribute rainwater, sequester…
FoI request to Defra
Dear Defra Please supply me with copies of any communications (emails or letters dated April-September 2014) between Defra and the participants in the Defra Hen Harrier Sub-Group of the Uplands Stakeholder Forum concerning Hen Harriers and/or grouse shooting and/or the progress on the drafting of a joint report. Thank you, Dr Mark Avery (mark@markavery.info) …