Mark Avery and the GWCT in complete agreement again?

Recently I had a long conversation with a GWCT  member who felt the organisation was 'going soft' on the problems wildlife is facing in the countryside (some commentators may use the expression 'left'). The construction of his observations were well made. As he slowly explained his logic I had the opportunity to fill in the gaps in his understanding. I was delighted that he could see how keeping what we all wanted to achieve for wildlife was crucial and, to that end, the GWCT was neither moving left or right. However, is it the answer to the wrong question? - I feel that organisations should be judged on what they have achieved - not left or right of another.

Yesterday the former conservation director of the RSPB, Mark Avery remarked on his blog that the he felt the GWCT is being "dragged to the right". As ever, no real examples were offered. On a later post he suggested that our joint working with Songbird Survival supported his view. This is remarkably similar to some of our members feeling our join initiatives with the RSPB and other organisations that they, personally, have less time for, are dragged us to the left. All complete nonsense.

I feel that the GWCT has not switched at all, but for those that find it easier to focus on building conservation stockades, dig entrenched views and use provocative language will continue to use left/right analogies. Clearly it is the conservation outcomes and achievements that need to be judged. Solutions suggested and tested are infinitely more helpful to wildlife than those trying and seeking division.

I feel the following example illustrates my point. The RSPB are currently running their farmer of the year awards and Mark Avery (who is sure we are all heading in differed directions) has suggested on his blog today that followers vote for Nicholas Watts. Good choice; only two weeks ago Nicholas was the candidate the GWCT suggested members support.  We are in agreement that his achievement have been truly remarkable. So have other candidates; vote here.

So in the spirit of this blog - if we keep the end in mind; I suggest we should focus on what can be achieved for wildlife, not where organisations sit in some theoretical conservation spectrum.

Should we ban grouse shooting?

It’s that time of the year when, as usual, grouse stories are circulating - some are calling for an outright ban - such as this blog Mark Avery. The logic is simple; if it is the case that game keepers are preventing the recovery of hen harriers then lets just ban grouse shooting.

So why not just ban it? Well recent work suggest what might happen if we were short-sighted enough to curb or undermine grouse moor shooting.

Across the UK, there is a strong correlation between grouse moor management and the abundance and productivity of species such as lapwing, curlew and golden plover, which are otherwise increasingly rare. And a new scientific study by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), published recently in the Journal of Applied Ecology, identifies that the control of predators such as foxes and crows, carried out to protect red grouse, can benefit one of our most striking birds of prey – the hen harrier.

The consequences of failing to work with farmers and keepers in the wider landscape is nowhere better illustrated than in the uplands of Wales, which once supported the most productive grouse moors in the UK as well as abundant populations of other birds.

However, since the last war almost half of the heather cover in Wales has been lost. Since the 1990s, owing to disease, overgrazing and, from the moor owners’ perspective, a lack of support from conservation agencies, grouse management has been all but abandoned and, as a consequence, upland bird populations have crashed.

This analysis has been leant credibility by a recent study carried out by GWCT, funded by the Moorland Association, which analysed the trends of upland birds in the Berwyn Special Protection Area (SPA) in North Wales. The study focused on changes in red grouse numbers and other upland birds between 1983 and 2002. Like many other parts of Wales, grouse bags peaked early in the 20th century. Unfortunately, this was followed by a steady decline in driven grouse shooting and, with it, upland keepering, which had virtually ceased by 1990.

The study showed that between 1983 and 2002, red grouse declined by 54 per cent in the Berwyn SPA. Over the same period, in the SPA, lapwing became extinct, golden plover declined from ten birds to one, and curlew declined by 79 per cent. Today, over 75 per cent of the entire Welsh black grouse population exists on the one remaining keepered Berwyn moor.

Given the private investment and measurable biodiversity benefits grouse management brings to the rest of the UK, many Welsh moor owners find it difficult to understand a negative and obstructive attitude towards traditional moorland management which had produced such an important landscape worthy of designation. There is a desperate need in Wales for a partnership between conservation agencies and sporting interests. Conservation management, on its own, has not succeeded.

Alarmingly, we see in south west Scotland a similar decline in upland areas actively managed for red grouse. This abandonment of sporting management threatens the rich tapestry that is the Scottish countryside. We therefore welcome Scottish Natural Heritage’s Wildlife Management Framework, a guide to decision making for wildlife management situations which could be used to test possible ways of re-starting sporting conservation.

Which brings us back to the grouse. Like it or loathe it, red grouse shooting generates on average £30 million to the Scottish economy alone. The management of grouse moors (heather burning, legal predator control) hugely benefits our diverse yet fragile wildlife. And most of this management is funded through the private investment of landowners.

Grouse moor management isn’t perfect and the GWCT and others are working to improve some aspects of it, notably the conservation of some birds of prey. But we, as a nation, should embrace grouse management and the private investment it brings as a positive contribution to biodiversity and celebrate the fact that we have a thriving industry maintaining our heather hills.

Surely it is time to move on and avoid such simplest views on grouse moor shooting?
 

RSPB Conservation Awards for Shooting?

Well if hen harriers are back in the press grouse shooting must have begun. The hen harrier numbers for England are shocking. Bricks are being thrown; talk of hen harrier extinction etc. In the 15 years since the GWCT published a scientific paper that stated that “In the UK, a full recovery of hen harriers Circus cyaneus breeding numbers is prevented by illegal culling by some gamekeepers who fear the species threatens the future of grouse moors”. It is hard to see exactly what has changed other than perhaps the population range of hen harriers has contacted to grouse moors alone. No hen harriers are breeding on RSPB managed moors for example; they used to.

What does this tell us? For me it is two things. Firstly the slow but constant blaming of hill keepers with negative press messages has not worked. It was never likely to work. I can think of no conflict resolution example where his has been the solution. Indeed it was not until the RSPB stopped blaming farmers, for the declines in farmland birds, that the farmers began to hear what they had to say. This was achieved in part by positioning themselves as the ‘farmers friend’ and listening to them. The second point is that the very conditions that the hill keepers put in place to help grouse (and as a result many other wildlife populations) appear to be exactly what the hen harrier needs to thrive.

So if  keepers hold the keys I believe we should, as with farmers, engage positively with them. Rather than run yet more stories about how evil keepers are; how about what they have achieved for conservation. Perhaps more importantly we should listen to the keepers concerns. Is their fear that the loss of their productive moor would result in the loss of their job? If so I can understand that. Surely it is time to listen and understand what these key holders what to say? Why not offer them some quota agreement (with the relocation of surplus hen harriers) so we can all move forward? To those on both sides that say this is heresy – I say other ideas have not worked well enough. Worse, if the moors should become unproductive; the keepers will leave and so will the conditions that the hen harriers (among others) need to thrive.

I was inspired by Martin Harper (RSPB Conservation Director) words at the CLA Game Fair. He mentioned that the RSPB approach to shooting is “no different” from farming or any other land use. So there has never been a better time for the RSPB to link up and run a conservation award scheme for the shooting community; just like it does for farmers. I am sure there will be problems but surely in the interest of maximising the benefits to wildlife and positively moving forward – this is exactly what is needed. Perhaps, an award of the best run grouse moor too. It is most certainly a time for an approach that works much better.

State of Nature - shattering the old conservation battle lines

For over a generation the UK’s approach to conservation has been based on one of protection and prescription. So, if a species is in worrying decline our response has been a rush to give it protection from the hand of man. Itself a little ironic since most of the remaining species in the UK are here precisely because they have found a way to live alongside man. Some species in fact thrived alongside man and followed, as farmers moved west opening up woodland for agriculture.

Protection takes two main forms. Firstly; legal protection, even though the real threat may come from something that legislation can’t address. It gives politicians, and those that like writing lists, something to show; however that may be all that is achieved. The second level of protection is buying land and putting up fences to protect nature from the hand of man. Marvellous places for inspiring minds. However the chances are nature is there precisely because man has not been using it to live, work or grow food and there is often no plans to alter that state.

Prescription takes the form of clip-board based conservation initiatives. In response to the cry for more to be done; NGO’s and civil servants arrive with manuals and instructions to tell people what they should be doing. Obviously it was never intended to be seen as top-down direction, however the bigger the conservation problem becomes, the greater the temptation to increase to dictate. This control and direction increase further when financial incentives are introduced to encourage adoption of prescriptions. The bureaucracy and manual must be right because I you are going to receive a payment for these ideas.

The result is a national approach to conservation isn’t working well enough. Plenty of people have said that, including the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (2007-08)  “… new approach will be needed to address the dramatic biodiversity loss that is occurring…”. Organisations produced alternatives, including the GWCT’s Restoring the balance discussion paper but most offering ‘new’ thinking were uncomfortable reading for most. Whilst all would agree we had to something better the idea of moving on from protection and prescription based conservation alone was just too much. Remember an entire generation had been educated and trained to follow this manta. Those that had ideas outside the core group were marginalised.

Ignoring the warnings that the existing approaches to conservation needs to change was easy. Human behaviour meant that, those with most to lose, the large conservation NGO’s, turned a blind eye to the growing problem. For as generation those that bought into the thinking made strides up the conservation corporate ladder; the rest held back.

The backfire effect, another human behaviour hardly helped. Studies have shown that when likeminded groups are presented with evidence that fundamentally challenges their view they just don’t believe the evidence. Worse, the more the evidence mounted, the more strongly people cling to their cherished view.

Just as in 2008 when the world realised that a AAA rated assets could be almost worthless will the publication of the State of Nature in 2013 chance the herds relentless pursuit of prescription and protection? We are all worried bystanders, unsure of what to do, fearful of embarrassment. Is the herd about to change? The chances the conservation community will have to switch course at some stage since to continue on the existing route will just require even more money – something the next generation of conservationists are likely to have.

Future conservation is going to have to rely less on what conservation NGO’s and civil servants think needs to be done – and more on engaging with and giving people on the ground the freedom to decide what they want and how they are going to produce it. A system that rewards success rather than putting conservation schemes in place. It is what we do for food production for us.

A time to share and celebrate the conservation achievements from game management?

We can all recall memorable occasions from our childhood. For me, one of these took place whilst shooting with my father on a sunny winter’s day. I can remember the exact spot on a woodland ride, where I plucked up the courage to question him about how nature benefited from shooting. I doubt my father recalls the moment in as much detail, but for me, it was pivotal. He talked me through what exactly a keeper does, showing me the pens, feeders and cover crops. Most importantly he explained how the woods supported a wide range of species as a result of this activity –  subsequently proven by Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) research.  In later years I began to recognise the subtle changes between individual shoots and the contribution they made to wildlife conservation.

Of course, much has changed since those halcyon days over 30 years ago. Farmland bird numbers have declined dramatically and prior to the introduction of agri–environment schemes habitats researched by the Trust and delivered by game managers provided the most significant on – farm habitats for many species. Today, many of these prescriptions are at the heart of farmland conservation policies but the contribution of game management to wildlife conservation has probably never been higher. A further key change in that time is the significant number of pheasants released, as shown in Table 1 below. This demonstrates the growth of pheasant release and management in that time.

On the one hand, this provides a powerful indicator of the potential contribution of game shooting to wildlife conservation but on the other the key questions are now being asked about possible damaging effects of pheasant releasing. The key challenge, of course, at national and shoot level is to demonstrate the most sustainable levels of release which are consistent with maximising the wider benefits for wild game and other wildlife.

 

Figure 1: Pheasant releasing trends 1961-2011, GWCT National Gamebag Census (1961=1)

The factors that have produced this trend in numbers are complex but originate in the crash of wild game and farmland birds during the modernisation of agriculture in the 60’s and 70’s. Key nesting and brood rearing habitats were lost and invertebrate numbers– the key resource for wild gamebird production – were lost in the drive for food production.

Perhaps paradoxically the resulting emphasis on rearing as a means of sustaining driven shooting had consequent detrimental effect on wild stocks since keepers and owners increasingly managed shoots for released birds and not for the wild ones. For example, many driving game crops such as maize and kale provide ideal autumn and winter cover for released birds but these are not suitable for nesting or chick rearing. Also, predator control by keepers is concentrated in the summer to protect released poults rather than in spring to save nests. However, many permanent pheasant coverts planted primarily for showing released pheasants do also provide good nesting cover around the edge and pheasant breeding densities are high in woodland designed as winter holding cover. More worrying is that reared birds make poor parents in subsequent years, since they are much more prone to predation, parasitism and adverse genetic selection.  

Although there may be problems associated with pheasant releasing, the creation and management of woodland for pheasants has very significant positive conservation benefits to other species. For example, GWCT research has shown that woodlands managed for pheasants have greater structural diversity, more butterflies and bird species compared to woodlands lacking game management.

In 2011 we surveyed birds on 34 farms in Leicestershire and recorded bird numbers on farms with and without shoots. This revealed that numbers of songbirds on farms with shoots were 30% higher than on those without (see Figure 2)

 Mean number of songbirds per transect (+ 1 se)

Figure 2: Songbird numbers are higher on local farms with shoots than on those without (based on survey of 34 farms)

The obvious question is one of wider sustainability – at a national level how long can bag levels be maintained though releasing ever greater quantities of pheasants? This is the type of question we are starting to see emerge from new reports from powerful and well funded organisations that are clearly antagonistic to gamebird releasing. These reports have not been produced for fun and may well indicate increasing pressure in the future. It’s surely time to act. Are you ready?

Across the country we all know and celebrate individual shoots that have been ambitious and achieved amazing conservation success, at a local level. At some sites the results have been scientifically recorded and the results published. Is it not time to now inspire the same success on a nationwide scale? Should we all be more ambitious about our conservation? At the level of the individual shoot we don’t need huge changes to demonstrate improvements in biodiversity. But added together small local improvements, in improving the productivity of ground nesting waders could add up to significant contribution at national level given the sheer numbers taking part. 

It will not be easy, but the results will be worth it. Nor is it as simple as pointing a finger at the larger scale shoots with big bags; the data show these increases can apply to all sizes of shoot. Just as with profitable farming, successful conservation can be achieved on any scale – as long as there is a will to succeed.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, the original source of that science that meant so much to me thirty years ago, thinks it can be done. It should be possible to implement effective conservation on shoots right across the country and then measure it. Just imagine, for one moment, being able to state the estimated net impact on nature from the combined efforts of all shoots rather than just selected sites. Today, the GWCT’s National Grey Partridge Count Scheme provides an example of the collective effort of farmers and game managers to reverse declining species. It provides a useful model – and confidence – that a broader influential statement of the benefits of game management can be achieved.

It is lucky that the charity has a powerful reputation for taken on daunting tasks. In 1932 the GWCT’s predecessor (ICI Game Research Station) started with the ambition to, ‘Make two birds fly where one flew before’. It seemed like a radical thing to do. Stocks of wild game were down to such an extent that people considered giving up on game shooting.  Undaunted, they launched this positive and far reaching path that paved the way for today’s Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.

Now we need to reinvent that optimistic approach but within the context of a modern, more complex world; by not only enhancing game stocks but, on a shoot by shoot basis, demonstrating the direct biodiversity benefits of game management. This is a call for action, to all, to do just that – a national Campaign for Game.

Today I am proud to work for the organisation which conducted the original scientific research that measured the local wildlife gains from shooting and is still prepared to be ambitious enough to shape the national picture. I hope that when my children ask how nature gains from released game, I can repeat what I was told. More than that, I look forward to adding that it is not just where shoots put in place best practice that nature significantly gains but that, more importantly, there is a proven net contribution nationally. Future generations will need thoroughly researched scientific evidence showing the net gain to nature to counter the unpopularity of releasing not just from animal welfare groups, but the media, politicians and some conservation charities.   

The GWCT has always brought people together to share their ideas on best practice and demonstrate new thinking. Do get in touch with your ideas.