Blogs

We respond to the recent decision taken by the Welsh Government to 'bring forward legislation to amend the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to ban the use of snares and glue traps'.

Policy makers must broaden their view of upland management.

The May 2021, the government ceded to calls for a ‘net zero’-style target for nature in the Environment Bill by introducing a Species Abundance Target, the detail of which is to be determined and the aim of has just been strengthened to “halt species decline by 2030”.

The lessons from America on wildfire suppression are real and urgent. There is a significant policy gap in the assertions made by the IUCN, Climate Change Committee, RSPB and others that managed burning on peatland must be stopped.

The recent debate on driven grouse shooting revealed two very different attitudes to management. Those opposed to banning grouse shooting regard the management of grouse moors as a constructive action supporting biodiversity and other public goods and services; those supporting a ban see management as artificial and destructive. So who is right?

Whilst farming policy has looked to embrace a more sustainable, practical future, the approach to wildlife conservation, as demonstrated by the latest pronouncements from Defra, seems to be ‘stuck in the mud’.

Seems a simple enough question, but when it comes to public policy it is more difficult. The current focus on climate change centres predominantly around carbon, with biodiversity rendered a supporting role through nature-based solutions. This raises the question: is biodiversity a good in its own right, or is it a supporting service that underpins delivery of a broad range of ecosystem services?

The one thing Covid 19 has taught us well, is that prevention is better than cure. In unvaccinated, high density human populations the virus spreads like wildfire. The same can be said of high density vegetation of heather and grass in the uplands.

The use of pesticides is hotly debated, but arguments around it are often absolute and lack nuance. The government derogation for farmers to use the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on sugar beet this year (dependent on evidence of potentially yield threatening levels of pests) created lots of headlines, plenty of outrage and, at the time of writing, 50,597 signatures to reverse the decision.

Last month we responded to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy‘s call for evidence on Greenhouse Gas Removals. With climate change high on the public agenda, it is important that we tackle it while ensuring livelihoods, food production and wildlife are part of the conversation.