Written by Henrietta Appleton, GWCT Policy Officer (England)
Whilst Mark Avery is disappointed with Labour so far (Guardian article 23rd January), I am disappointed that he is content that his legacy is seen as creating a “landscape of fear”. Mark explains that bringing legal cases to challenge Government’s environmental agenda is a bit like pine martens creating fear in grey squirrels; “the pine marten doesn’t have to catch every single grey squirrel to create a landscape of fear”. Likewise Wild Justice does not need to win every legal case to make Government consider their decisions. I find myself thinking that it is ok to be a disrupter and to seek to change policy but how you do it is important and that by creating a “landscape of fear” I do wonder if in the end nature is the loser not the winner.
Fear drives the polarisation of viewpoints and emphasises conflict rather than coexistence or compromise. There have been initiatives to try and bring parties together, such as the hen harrier recovery plan and associated hen harrier brood management project. The latter has seen a successful collaboration between Natural England and grouse moor managers (and others, including the GWCT) resulting in a significant increase in harrier numbers. But this has now come to an end and the next phase of coexistence is uncertain.
The polarisation of viewpoints over wildlife conservation is reinforced by a number of factors including the politicisation of wildlife conservation, false narratives (encouraged by social media and the need for political soundbites), selective interpretation of scientific evidence and the lack of success of current conservation policy approaches. Consequently rather than human-wildlife conflict, it has become a conflict between different groups of humans over wildlife i.e. a human-human conflict.
Globally human-wildlife conflict is seen as a significant hurdle to conservation that needs to be overcome. So much so that it is now embedded in the goal 4 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. This has raised the concern about its impacts up the political agenda. But to avoid it becoming another box ticking exercise, we need our Governments’ to sign up to the IUCN guidelines and to ensure that the framework the IUCN has developed for addressing deep-rooted conflicts is embedded in how our natural environment advisory bodies approach their resolution. As the IUCN states “Poorly informed human-wildlife conflict mitigation attempts can exacerbate the situation”.
Given that resolving deep-rooted conflict, like that over driven grouse shooting, requires a willingness for coexistence, generating a “landscape of fear” is arguably counter-productive. Surely a better legacy would be to have encouraged a landscape of collaboration and coexistence with wildlife the winner? With the government opening “a conversation” on a proposed Land Use Framework, which will need to make reference to Labour’s “Plan for Growth”, ambition to protect and enhance Natural Capital, a food strategy, a strategic energy plan, food production (including viability, security and resilience to climate change) a refreshed Environmental Improvement Plan etc., we are surely going to need to learn how to better co-exist and compromise across the landscape. My fear is that we will not, and the consequences of that for wildlife and humans.