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Last updated 17 April 2016 2016 "His comments have raised concerns among UK farmers" 2015 "little potential to improve it for nature" 2014 "maximising the impact of the ponies and the benefits for nature" 2013 "Of course we need to cull them. Get a grip" 2012 "peatlands are more important than tropical rainforest" 2011 in an unfavourable condition and requires management to improve its status 2010 “We are proud to have a sustainable conservation system up and running to safeguard the future of this unsurpassed southern wilderness and its wildlife” - -see the Addendum Nov 2009 “the danger of re-wilding ideas, though, is that they are often based on rampant political naivety” a membership-collecting factory the hard work of the upland gamekeepers controlling crows and foxes to protect the grouse Ministers are reneging on promises to safeguard vital wildlife areas around Britain's coasts 2008 very exciting project for the National Trust Legal control of crows, foxes and stoats These animals disappeared for a reason, because they were competing with our own needs Grey wolves in the northern Rocky mountains are thriving and no longer need protection - see the Addendum August 2007 There's a deep cultural resistance to the idea of land no longer being farmed grazing animals manage the land, keeping it cropped and tidy and attractive to visitors Shoot a moose and you have saved the equivalent of two long-haul flights We must increase our efforts to restore and manage lowland heathland Detested the barren hills of Scotland Re-wilding, creating woodlands and heathlands Naturally maintain one of Britain's most sensitive eco-systems Now we should fear for the wild -see the Addendum March 2006 Dyfi Valley, Uluru and Yellowstone
Born to be wild
Do away with farming and the countryside will be nothing - back to wilderness in no time at all The anthem of summer - more Romanticism The modern version of the pre-Romantic wilderness Managed grazing prevents most sites reverting to wild forest 2005 But we cant call it wilderness in Scotland Forgetting how people once felt about bears and packs of wolves |
So often, the word wilderness is used incorrectly in the media, and there is a seemingly determined phobia for wild nature amongst the media clique. Perhaps it's too challenging for their revolving metropolitan/weekend country cottage lifestyle? It is obvious that the problem arises from the lack of true wilderness in Britain from which an understanding can be derived. Thus wilderness is described as empty, bleak, savage, or even pointless, and proponents of ecological restoration are seen as indulgent or seeking a vicarious thrill. This is an occasional series that highlights the backward use of the word wilderness - ssenredliw - and the blindingly misinformed state of many columnists on wild nature. It will highlight the painful paradox that journalists, by their ill-informed reporting, are guilty of supporting the increasing harm that is being caused by public funding being used by conservation professionals to manage landscapes in ways that kill off wildness. It may also expand on articles and press releases where the real importance of the story is overlooked.
Bringing back the lynx will create havoc for UK sheep farmers, Philip
Bowern, The Herald 14 April 2016 The National Sheep Association (NSA) was pretty unhappy with the publicity that the Lynx UK Trust achieved a year ago, contacting Natural England to voice its objection to lynx reinstatement (1) and then writing to the Trust asking it to engage with farmers and land managers, rather than “seeking largely disconnected public support”, the accusation in the heading of the News Release implying that the Trust was pulling “public media stunts” (2). Well, as I will explain, the NSA apparently are not above such stunts itself. Just over a week ago, the Association launched a report at a conference in London on the wider consequences of releasing lynx in the UK countryside (3). I had a quick look at the report (4) and it’s a poor by comparison with the commissioned report from the Deer Society (5). It’s most obvious failings advertise that the report was done in house and without any attribution. There will later be a specific critique of this report and its assertions elsewhere, but I want to concentrate on the press reports of a speaker at the launch, a Swedish sheep farmer Tomas Olsson, who was invited to talk about his experiences with predators (3). What these press reports let slip is an interesting pattern of escalating revelation of what allegedly Olsson said at the Conference, and which were subsequently repeated in other media reports, effectively ratcheting up alarm about the implications of lynx reinstatement for sheep farmers. Thus there were four reveals that weren’t in the original NSA News Release about the Conference (3). Farmers Weekly reported Olsson saying that the UK’s network of hedges “would be perfect for the lynx to hunt from", that “In the beginning you just lose some sheep and you don’t know why, but then you find more and more dead and not even eaten”, and that Olsson spent his time caring for his sheep “just in order to feed the lynx” (6). This was followed by the Farmers Guardian, which reported that Olsson thought the proposed mitigation measure of installing fencing around sheep “would be completely impractical as lynx could jump fences more than 2.2 metres high” (7). A follow-up News Release by the NSA also noted this propensity of lynx for high jump, but then followed it with a more sinister behaviour described by Olsson, that lynx are “stealthy enough to sneak into barns and sheds to take sheep” (8). Sensing the impact that Olsson was having, the NSA follow-up News Release also parroted the dead not eaten and “just in order to feed the lynx” and then chucked in another alarmist pearl from Olsson – “I think maybe the younger ones that hunt for fun and kill more than they can eat”. The latter was subsequently parroted in five other media reports, including the strapline article above and which gives me this telling point about the impact that this drip, drip of alarmism from Olsson was achieving – “His comments have raised serious concerns amongst UK farmers” Objecting to lynx reinstatement is unsurprising from an organisation that supports sheep farmers, but the NSA is a registered charity and thus has to be careful about how it campaigns to gain support for its objection (9). Thus there are issues of importance for the NSA trustees to be able to explain their charity’s decision to engage in campaigning against lynx, and to set objectives for the campaign which have a reasonable likelihood of success, as well as making sure they monitor progress towards them during the implementation phase of the campaign. Is it in line with charitable aims of NSA, does it meet Public Benefit, was the research for the report adequate (material must be factually accurate and have a legitimate evidence base) does it misuse emotive or controversial material, is it an unallowable opposition to policy, seeking to influence decisions (of NDPBs like Natural England) etc, etc. I wonder whether the use of unreliable reporting of an unreliable witness (Olsson has done little in Sweden to suggest his are more than just anecdotal observations – see (10)) but which was calculated to cause alarm, fits with the strictures on charity campaigning. Mark Fisher 17 April 2016 (1) NSA takes action to discourage release of lynx into British countryside, National Sheep Association News Release 19 March 2015 (2) NSA urges Lynx UK Trust to engage properly with farmers and land managers, rather than trying to pull public media stunts, National Sheep Association News Release 28 April 2015 (3) New report reveals wider consequences of releasing lynx in the UK countryside, National Sheep Association News Release 8 April 2016 (4) The wider consequences of the introduction of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) to the UK, National Sheep Association April 2016 (5) Milner, J. M. and Irvine, R.J. (2015. The potential for reintroduction of Eurasian lynx to Great Britain: a summary of the evidence. British Deer Society Commissioned Report http://www.bds.org.uk/index.php/documents/research/67-lynxs-reintroduction-to-uk/file (6) Lynx reintroduction would be ‘final straw’ for sheep farmers, Mark Astley, Farmers Weekly 11 April 2016 http://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/lynx-reintroduction-would-be-final-straw-for-sheep-farmers.htm (7) Reintroduction of lynx could be final straw for 'fragile' sheep industry, Olivia Midgley, FG Insight 12 April 2016 (8) Farmers voice animal welfare concerns linked to proposed lynx introduction. National Sheep Association News Release 12 April 2016 (9) Speaking out: guidance on campaigning and political activity by charities (CC9) Charity Commission March 2008 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/434427/CC9_LowInk.pdf (10) Elstängsel hotas av EU, Bärgslagsbladet/Arboga Tidning 1 november 2011 http://bblat.se/misc/bbllokal//varg2-3.pdf
RSPB ignores widow's wishes and looks to sell land for housing,
Nicola Harley, Daily Telegraph 5 June 2015
At the risk of seeming obsessed with the dodgy actions of the RSPB, it
really is an organisation that has a deaf ear when it comes to balancing
its corporate ambition against increasingly common criticisms. This
article exposes the hypocrisy of seeking to sell off land, bequeathed to
the RSPB on the understanding that it would not be built on, and that
its wildlife would be protected, after the 25 acres of land received
outline planning permission for 150 houses. Neil Robertson, the RSPB’s
director for Northern England, is quoted as saying:
This a classic case of betterment whereby the planning permission
spectacularly raises the potential asking price, the difference being a
few thousand per acre for agricultural land, to the almost a quarter of
million per acre as building land. That a development of this scale is a
“departure from the Development Plan” for the area (1) shows the
lengths the RSPB has gone to maximise its income from selling this land,
including enlisting the services of Richborough Estates to obtain the
planning permission (2). This is the type of business that Richborough is
(3): Richborough boasts that its planning applications are recommended for approval because it “work[s] very closely with the landowner, local communities, local planning officers and town councils to create the most mutually beneficial plans” (3). The RSPB must have thought that this would isolate it from objection, but the supporting document on the planning application that was referred to the Strategic Planning Board of Cheshire East Council lists the detailed objections of Somerford Parish Council and Congleton Town Council, as well as local residents action groups Protect Congleton and Somerford Parish Residents Action Group (4) and what looks like at least 100 individual objections from local residents (5) – all of which would have been in no doubt of who the planning application was on behalf of. It’s a bit stinky that the Strategic Planning Board delegated the decision on the application to a planning officer, but subject to a range of conditions, and with the requirement for a Section 106 agreement to secure affordable housing, a play area and other green space, and a sum of £55,610 to be used to deliver off-site habitat creation/enhancement (7). None of this impressed Somerford Parish Council, which resolved to “register the land owned by the RSPB as an asset of community value” and thus hope to thwart the development (8). The RSPB has previous form on developing against the objection of local people. Its Heritage Lottery Funded “Flow to the Future” project that it coordinates for the Peatlands Partnership is sticking up a very conspicuous observation tower and a two-storey, wooden field centre at its Forsinard Flows Reserve on the Flow Country in Scotland, in spite of accusations of double standards and hypocrisy that it is flying in the face of “conservation values” promoted by the charity (9) and outright opposition from local residents (10,11,12). There has even been the sordid event of a local part-time cleaner being sacked for gross misconduct by the RSPB because she put up signs “in her property” objecting to the development (13). And, wouldn’t you just know it, the RSPB are being investigated by the Forestry Commission for felling an estimated 100,000 trees on their Forsinard Flows reserve without having a felling license (14). It would be expected that the RSPB comes in for criticism from the gamebird shooting lobby, the accusation from its new pressure group You Forgot the Birds (YFTB) being that it is a “charity that forgot its mission”(15). Ian Gregory, its Campaign Director, is scathing in the Telegraph article about the RSPB's intention to sell off the land at Black Firs Lane, suggesting that Mrs Rheade, the benefactor, would be horrified at what might happen with the land - “When faced with the choice between cash or conservation the RSPB’s management instinctively puts money before morality" YFTB questions the effectiveness of the RSPB and the conservation industry in general, asserting that they may be great at fundraising, but do little for real conservation – which is why the YFTB says it is “going to examine the accounts of the RSPB and all the 47 Wildlife Trusts and get you the facts” (15). This could be quickly be dismissed as the rantings of the rural loonies, but an earlier accusation that the RSPB spends only a quarter of its funds on saving birds resulted in a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency that it had to scrap adverts that claimed 90 per cent of its £128million annual income is spent on conservation work (16) Mark Fisher 7 June 2015 (1) Application No: 13/2746C – Supporting document, Strategic Planning Board, Wednesday, 2nd April, 2014 http://moderngov.cheshireeast.gov.uk/documents/s32318/13%202746C.pdf (2) Projects: Congleton. Richborough Estates http://www.richboroughestates.co.uk/projects/congleton/19.htm (3) Richborough Estates http://www.richboroughestates.co.uk/ (4) Somerford Parish Residents Action Group https://www.facebook.com/SomerfordParishResidentsActionGroup (5) Planning Application Details Reference Number Reference Number 13/2746C, Cheshire East Council (6) RECORD OF DELEGATED DECISION - Matter decided: That the planning application at Black Firs Lane/Holmes Chapel Rd/ Chelford Rd (13/2746c) be approved subject to the signing of a s106 legal agreement and planning conditions for up to 180 dwelling, public open space, green infrastructure and associated works. Decision Date August 2014 Decision Taking Officer David Malcolm. http://doc.cheshireeast.gov.uk/NorthgatePublicDocs/07622520.pdf (7) Agenda item: 13/2746C-Erection of up to 180 dwellings, public open space, green infrastructure and associated works, Land between Black Firs Lane, Chelford Road & Holmes Chapel Road, Somerford, Congleton, Cheshire for Paul Campbell, Richborough Estates Partnership LLP, Strategic Planning Board Minutes, Wednesday, 2nd April, 2014 10.30 am http://moderngov.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ecminutes/mgAi.aspx?ID=23262 (8) SOMERFORD PARISH COUNCIL. Minutes of the Parish Council meeting held on Monday 19th January 2015 at The Schoolroom, Davenport Chapel. http://somerford.org/ShowDoc.asp?DocNo=13567 (9) RSPB accused of hypocrisy over peatland bogs plan, Alistair Munro, Scotsman 15 April 2014 http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/rspb-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-peatland-bogs-plan-1-3376351 (10) Forsinard community makes feelings clear to RSPB, Northern Times 27 March 2014 http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Forsinard-community-makes-feelings-clear-to-RSPB-27032014.htm (11) Opposition to planned peat bog centre at Forsinard, BBC News Highlands & Islands 4 June 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-27685977 (12) Forsinard says NO https://www.facebook.com/ForsinardsaysNo (13) Cleaner claims she was fired over bird plan protest, Neil Macphail, Press and Journal 2 July 2014 (14) RSPB could be fined for chopping down 100,000 trees, Morag Lindsay, Press and Journal 16 May 2015 (15) You Forgot The Birds http://www.youforgotthebirds.com/ (16) RSPB accused of ignoring the dying wishes of a widow after she left them 25 acres of land in her will to protect wildlife - which they now want to sell for HOUSING, Elaine O'Flynn, Daily Mail 6 June 2015
Can wild konik ponies munch a meadow back to life?
BBC News Science and Environment 12 October 2014 Another week, another nauseating puff piece on BBC breakfast news showing cute but allegedly “wild” animals coming to the rescue of meadow flowers in an RSPB reserve on the NE coast of Scotland. Dig a little deeper and not only has this story been done to death before, but the shallow nature of the explanation of what is going on there is riddled with holes. Taken at face value, the claim is that Konik ponies, a breed of horse from Poland with characteristics believed to be similar to the extinct European wild horse, have been brought in to graze a fen meadow of its soft rush that is outcompeting meadow flowers, and thus avoid the costs from mechanical cutting. We see RSPB staff affecting to be wary in their handling of these “wild” animals (even though one is seen trying to pet an animal while it was in a crush), the inevitable GPS tracking collar on one of the ponies adding to the allusion of a "wild" animal whose grazing behaviour would then be matched to the varying flowering season. On the version broadcast, there was also a loony from Plantlife doing the “science bit”, but stressing that it will involve visitors and the local community who can come along and see what’s going on. What was this loony (an allusion to a N. American aquatic bird) doing there, and why strangely is he missing from the video version posted now? This is the RSPBs Loch of Strathbeg reserve, a freshwater lagoon behind a large sand dune, and which is bounded by marsh and fens – a combination that is a magnet for passage, wintering and breeding waterfowl in Britain. As a SSSI, the birds and the dune are notified features, as are the fen meadows that are mostly to the W of the lagoon. While the bird species of interest are detailed, there is no listing of the flowers of interest in these fen meadows, just a condition assessment from 2005 that they were unfavourable declining (1,2). The Site Management Statement from Scottish Natural Heritage has an objective for management to maintain the current extent and diversity of fen and swamp habitats along with zonal transitions, by controlling scrub and grazing the marsh and fen areas (3). The loch itself is of relatively recent origin, formed in about 1720 when encroachment of a coastal bar sealed the mouth of the Savoch Burn (3). The majority of the site was shot over for waterfowl until, in 1973, the RSPB established a nature reserve. The main land use of the catchment surrounding the reserve is mixed or arable agriculture, so that diffuse inputs from agriculture, and the large number of waterfowl roosting on/near to the loch in winter, both contribute to, and accelerate eutrophication of the loch. The outlet from the Loch of Strathbeg is artificially maintained. Under RSPB management, fields close to the loch at Savoch have been turned into pasture and flooded for part of the year. This has been done by managing the water table on the Savoch low ground, to the west of the Loch, and installing a series of ditches and bunds, so as to make it more attractive to waders and wintering wildfowl. Of course, this gardening for nature cannot stop there, as the pasture has to be grazed with the inevitable flock of 32 sheep (4)!
I’m guessing that the sheep didn’t do well in the wetter
areas, and so the first herd of eight Konik ponies arrived in 2011, having
come from the Wildwood Trust in Kent, their arrival captured for TV (5).
Wildwood Trust chief executive Peter Smith appears in the video, and is
quoted: Can the grazing by a domesticated animal whose presence even as an analogue for an extinct species, but which has no legitimacy in a post-glacial Britain, be considered natural (6)? Is a fen meadow contrived by manipulating the hydrology of the reserve ever natural? Smith is of course rehearsing the conservation industry mantra that grazing by herbivores is a replacement for the cost of cutting by machinery, and which is echoed by Dominic Funnell of the RSPB in that video. Smith avers that the ponies came from a very large reserve in the Netherlands, which I presume must be the Oostvaardersplassen. While they may be free-ranging there, delivering of their offspring without assistance, they are still captive behind fences and have no experience of the fear of being predated, the same conditions that face them now in the RSPB reserve but in a much smaller area. I think it more likely that Smith is talking about the origins of his source of Konik ponies because, over the years, Wildwood has captively bred and then distributed hundreds of the ponies around the UK (7,8). How wild is that? How wild is a domesticated breed? A year later, a further four ponies were added to the herd, Richard Humpidge, RSPB, declaring that the ponies have been “so effective we've decided to increase the herd slowly and naturally through a breeding programme. That way we can monitor their progress and ensure we reach a grazing level that is beneficial for the thousands of geese, ducks and wading birds that need the wetlands to feed and breed” (9) No mention of meadow flowers there, but you have to follow the money in the change of emphasis for the grazing. Come forward to June this year, and BBC Two Scotland has a section of their Landward program where “Dougie is at the Loch of Strathbeg nature reserve to meet the rare Polish ponies that are being used to control the growth of vegetation to create a better habitat for local wildlife” (10)
The reason for this second TV piece on the ponies? Arch
open landscape protagonists Plantlife led a successful £2.1m consortium bid
to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Save our Magnificent Meadows Project
(11,12). As a partner in this consortium, RSPB Scotland put in a bid for
money to fund conservation work on the fen meadows at Loch Strathbeg. What
you can read in the RSPB press release about the project, but won’t hear in the latest and
third TV piece, is what that money is being used for. In the press
release, Richard Humpidge – who earlier said the ponies had been “so
effective” (see above) is quoted as saying that that during the three
years they have been there, the Konik ponies have made a “good start”
at removing the rushes (13). However, their shortcomings are then
revealed: Would soft rush ever be their first or only choice of what Konik ponies will eat? The RSPB always knew that Konik ponies would never be enough to create the garden they envisaged, hence the need to find funding for the contractors, but they still trumpeted the conservation industry mantra that herbivores would save money and replace direct cutting. Why was it that the loony from Plantlife said nothing about bringing in contractors in the third TV piece? He did, however, admit that they would have to work out how to avoid the ponies eating the meadow flowers if and when they return. Mark Fisher 13 October 2014 (1) LOCH OF STRATHBEG, Scottish Natural Heritage (2) Site Details for Loch of Strathbeg, Scottish Natural Heritage http://gateway.snh.gov.uk/sitelink/siteinfo.jsp?pa_code=1040 (3) LOCH OF STRATHBEG Site of Special Scientific Interest Site Management Statement (4) sheep, mud and questionable sanity, Dominic Funnell, RSPB Loch of Strathbeg blog 12 February 2010 (5) Konik horses arrive at RSPB Loch of Strathbeg reserve, BBC News NE Scotland, Orkney & Shetland 7 April 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-12977782 (6) The natural vegetation of England, Self-willed land August 2014 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/natural_veg_england.htm (7) Wild horse foal born at Wildwood, Wildwood blog Tuesday, 27 March 2012 http://thewildwoodtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/wild-horse-foal-born-at-wildwood.html (8) Wildwood's horses roaming free in Wales Wednesday, 30 April 2014 http://thewildwoodtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/wildwoods-horses-roaming-free-in-wales.html (9) More wild Konik horses introduced at Loch of Strathbeg, BBC News NE Scotland, Orkney & Shetland16 August 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-19281158 (10) Episode 12, BBC Two Landward, 13 June 201419:30 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046rppv (11) Multimillion pound boost to save UK’s Magnificent Meadows, Heritage Lottery Fund 4 February 2014 http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/MagnificentMeadows.aspx#.VDquRvldWjc (12) Investing £5million in UK’s natural heritage, Heritage Lottery Fund 4 February 2014 http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/InvestingUKnaturalheritage.aspx#.VDvyLvldWjc (13) Fen restoration is horse-play at Loch of Strathbeg, RSPB News 13 June 2014 http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=370857 Hairy pigs introduced to restore heath land and attract wildlife, BBC News 3 October 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29472957 I saw the section of BBC Breakfast news that is shown in the video link in this article. It’s another nauseatingly trite puff piece from the conservation industry, this time about the RSPBs restoration of heathland on its land on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. It has all the ingredients – cute animals that are “the latest weapon in their fight to preserve and restore threatened heath land in Dorset”. Where is the war? Such hyperbole! Then the justification – “Normally it would be an expensive piece of machinery but this time it is something more unusual - a rare breed of hairy pig”. Well, since there is a whacking agri-environment payout on the land, and claiming single farm payment, plus milking funds from it being in a Nature Improvement Area (Wild Purbeck?!!) then the matter of cost is probably immaterial compared to the promotional value of the cute animals that got it on breakfast TV. Moreover, we have the subliminal implication that the use of this domesticated species, whose numbers have waxed and waned, is somehow saving of the breed, and that, really, it is like a wild animal that is doing the business. I will gloss over the ignorant claim by the RSPBs Mark Singleton that he didn't know of pigs being used in this way before, because it wasn't obvious what he thought the pigs were achieving - he talked of litter arising from tree cover, but by way of example he showed a handful of the humus layer that arises from bracken coverage. The nodding donkey from Natural England just gave it imprimatur by spouting the usual dogma about how precious heathland is. It is though Tim Muffett (?!) the TV interviewer, who nails the dogma in the very first few seconds when he describes the restoration of this RSPB reserve to the “pristine heathland” it once was. Perhaps I should also put this on my webpage documenting the nonsense of conservation speak! I walked Arne Hill last year, depressed at yet another example of how the conservation industry kills all the wildness, so much so that I used photographs I took to illustrate a talk I gave at the Wild Nephin conference, where I teased out the meanings of wild, natural and native (1). I observed that while the vegetation on Arne Hill is mostly native, it was not natural, and definitely was not wild. Under the photo of an area of mono-culture heather on Arne Hill resulting from prior restoration, I asked “is this really worth the destruction?” Mark Fisher 5 October 2014
(1) Fisher, M. (2013) WILD or NATURAL -the challenges
Europe faces in setting aside wilderness url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/Ssenredliw.htm www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk |