Dear Sir
The proposal in the government’s recently published Land Use Framework to license gamebird management suggests a worrying lack of understanding of the fundamental connection between shooting and conservation in some of our most well-loved landscapes: Labour’s shooting crackdown threatens to hollow out the countryside.
For instance, the moorland near Helmsley is one of the last places in the UK where you will find stable breeding populations of many of our most endangered waders like curlew, golden plover and oystercatcher. Our research has identified grouse moors with four times more breeding curlew than unmanaged ground. That’s a direct result of the work carried out by gamekeepers maintaining habitats and managing predators – all at no cost to the taxpayer.
Without shooting it’s very hard to see how that vital work would be carried out. Who would do it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and who would pay for it? For the uninitiated it seems counterintuitive, but it’s clear that if you remove shooting from these landscapes, you will also remove some of our most iconic wild species, probably forever.
Part of the problem is that policymakers and politicians tend to write plans for the countryside from behind a desk in an urban setting. That’s why it’s so important that the GWCT will be hosting officials for regular training at our demonstration farm in Leicestershire over the next four years.
But more can be done. We’ve seen a small number of ministers and officials visit the uplands in recent years, and I’m sure they’ve always been surprised to see how well shooting and conservation work together and have such a positive impact – perhaps challenging some of their preconceptions. GWCT is well placed to be able to facilitate more opportunities for policymakers and politicians to experience great examples of lowland and upland shooting driving biodiversity recovery. If you want to be sure of evidence-led policy, it’s a case of “come and see for yourselves”.
Yours faithfully,
Nick von Westenholz
Chief Executive Officer
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust