Grouse shooting and flooding - our letter to The Telegraph

Hare Country Dear Sir,

The claim by Natalie Bennett the Green Party leader (Telegraph 16th Jan) that grouse shooting somehow caused the recent floods is as wrong as it is bizarre. In the 1960s and 70s, successive governments offered upland farmers and landowners huge grants for draining, fencing, and to construct roads and tracks. These grants were designed to increase agricultural productivity, not grouse.

It has long been the view of the GWCT that upland drainage does nothing to enhance grouse numbers and it is sad to see the very people who refused the drainage grants now being attacked for something they didn't do. This injustice is made worse by the fact that many existing grouse moor managers have for years been busily blocking the government-funded drains in order to re-wet damaged moors.

Her claim that heather moorland is an 'industrial landscape' is simply ridiculous. It is one of the rarest landscapes in the world and for many people one of the most beautiful. If it is so dreadful, why do millions of people flock to these areas in every season of the year?

Nor are grouse moors a one species 'monoculture'. There are very many species which thrive on grouse moors, including some which find it difficult to survive elsewhere such as, curlew, golden plover, lapwing, black grouse and mountain hare.

That Britain has custodianship of 75% of the world's heather moorland is in part due to the fact that grouse shooting has perpetuated the ancient manage techniques which created it in the first place. It is a rich and beautiful landscape, beloved by millions and about as industrial as a wildflower meadow, and it does not cause floods.

Ian Coghill
Chairman of Trustees
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust

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Comments

Green's diatribe

at 12:10 on 06/02/2016 by fergus murray

When working in southern Snowdonia in the Rhinog Mountains, the heather was waist high an sterile to all wildlife..........it was probably a "living" habitat early in the last Century. No respect for the Green's very distorted approach to the environment.

Grouse Moors Are Purple Not Green

at 13:10 on 22/01/2016 by Simon Mansell

The Green Party is communism designed by middle-class vegetarians. The Greens are the only party who openly propose policies that would bankrupt the UK and reduce us to a third world state. The truly frightening thing is these lunatic have 11% of the vote and therefore their lunacy must always be countered by science. Well done GWCT.

Grouse moor management

at 18:56 on 20/01/2016 by Jimmy shuttlewood

The negative comments made towards the grouse moor management is made by people who do not live and work 24/7 with nature, they have no proper experience of this lifestyle therefore can not have a proper opinion, they can only repeat or make up other people's guess work! They clearly ignore true facts about the overwhelming good that grouse moor management does and would do an incredible amount of harm to our fantastic country side if they got there way, and to use the plight of the flood victims to try to reach there political aims shows there are no depths to that they will not stoop! They see the flooding as a golden opportunity to paint an untrue picture! The fact that we have never had this much rain before and there is more tarmac concrete tiled roofs drains than ever before, poorly maintained rivers becks and dykes are all the real problem.

Monoculture - Really?

at 21:38 on 19/01/2016 by Dee Ward

The heather moorland I manage has a "monoculture" of 102 bird species ! Not to mention huge amounts of mountain hares, red deer, roe deer as well as pine martens, otters, wild cats.. We have huge wetland areas that we also manage for wild life and recently helped prevent far worse flooding in local towns. I wish politicians woulds get their facts straight before they spout off all this rubbish. Has Natalie Bennett ever been on a grouse moor I wonder?

Moorlands managed by the real custodians ...... Gamekeepers

at 18:58 on 19/01/2016 by Heather Moorland

What utterly predictable drivel from Natalie Bennett, she clearly doesn't know a grouse from a goose. The sort of none sensicle rubbish we have come to expect from the uneducated "university" graduates with absolutely no experience of land management . They trot out the same dull rubbish each and every time. Long may the real custodians of our balanced countryside reign.

Heather moorland is a thing of beauty

at 16:31 on 19/01/2016 by Bruce Hall

I have obviously been spending too much time on beautiful moorland and I hadn't realised what I was missing now that McDonalds restaurants are apparently areas of outstanding natural beauty and/or sites of special scientific interest. Even the RSPB accept that moorland should be properly managed and as has been said there is simply no evidence to support claims that the management causes flooding.

Grouse Moors

at 9:41 on 19/01/2016 by Michael Grocott

I am continually amazed that such fringe lunacy, as demonstrated by the Green Party and its deluded disciples, is given such air to breath in the UK. Only in December we had one of their loons, on TV, banging on about flooding on the Somerset levels being flooded due to climate change. The Somerset Levels and York have always flooded as history has shown and far worse than was seen at xmas. The North York Moors are, in my view, the most beautiful area in the UK. They are my home and certainly not "industrial landscapes". Miss Bennett is nothing but another far left communist mascarading as a green to further her agenda. A watermelon. Given her repeated car crash interviews i am surprised she hasn't been removed and sent packing back down under by now.

Grouse moors as industrial landscapes

at 8:48 on 19/01/2016 by Martin Wood-Weatherill

Your claim that grouse moors are NOT industrial landscapes is incorrect. Our heather moorland as we now know it is a result of early farmers grazing vulnerable areas and denuding them of trees leading to damage to fragile soil and the spread of heather (c2500-2000 yrs ago), as is the case here in Swaledale. I often hear farming referred to as an industry therefore.... As for your comment 'if heather moors are dreadful why do millions of people flock to them every year', well probably for the same reasons that people who know about nutrition visit McDonalds every year.

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