UKH

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Bill, legislation that will bring in a licensing scheme for grouse shooting and muirburn (moorland burning) following a long campaign by conservation organisations.

Read more

So 29 conservatives voting against out of the current 31 (if my internet search is correct). Pals from industry and corporations must have their fun I suppose! So grotesquely stereotypical that I cannot even find the energy to laugh…

Quelle surprise!

Fergus Ewing, the Landed Gentry's man in the SNP voted against.

Raptor persecution happens on a daily basis on commercial highland sporting estates, there is strong evidence of this from GPS tagging of birds by the RSPB.

It is absolutely sickening and shows how backwards the whole industry is.

Hopefully England will follow... the moors here seem even less biodivers than in Scotland, perhaps due to the intensity and length of that style of management .  Protect and restore them ! 

A  great victory for nature, and certainly something England should be looking at bringing in. 

If people are interested in why this was a necessary, I'd highly recommend Mark Avery's book 'Inglorious' where he comprehensively sets out the case for regulating this industry. A good day for the hen harrier!

Was it just because of him that it has taken the SNP more than four years to implement what are basically the recommendations of the 2019 Werritty Report?

(https://www.gov.scot/publications/grouse-moor-management-group-report-scott...)

Nope SNP ‘central’ had to be forced by the Greens (whom in turn had to be forced by their true environmental wing) and by regional SNP members to do it.

If it had been down to the SNP head office alone it would never had happened…….

The fact that after several decades of devolution that we are only just getting round to sort out simple environmental issues like grouse moors and have yet to get the deer numbers down tells you all about how Holyrood hasn’t really served the function, at least I hoped it would, when voting for it last century and the SNP are largely to blame!

Heres another nice story ...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/20/a-mecca-for-rewilders-t...

Some ideas for england are . Buffer zones for wildlife and nature around rivers, hedgerows and woodlands, the re-wilding and ongoing management of the moors and uplands.  Would a complete change of use of some of England's grouse moors be more effective? 

Arguably both, sustainable farming and land use on lowlands and highlands. Having a mono culture in one can't be offset by planting a few trees in another. 

I was thinking both, but the lowland has to remain mainly as productive farmland, hopefully less intensive though with more planned space for nature,  whereas the higher ground, more marginal for farming, lends itself to a more 'blanket' rewilding or repurposing...