DEFRA consultation on on approach to beaver reintroduction and management in England

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Interested to know if your response gives any hope for small traditional farms or shall we all now consider sacking the extra workman & vegetating for the foreseeable future?
I made the point, strongly imho, that the impacts of the proposed protection regime would be disproportionate on smaller farms. I sought that Natural England should be required to commission an independent regulatory impact assessment of any licensing regime they create around financial and time costs with emphasis on its impact on smaller farmers and landowners.

I asked that release project applications should be required to include a provision once the project ends of a support system to help land managers to assess impacts from beavers entering their land and to facilitate their use of the licencing regime where needed.

I also pointed out that the proposals risk increasing the flood risk to semi-rural domestic and commercial properties in the flood plain when beavers restrict the flow and that those affected will often not be able to address the issue themselves because they don't own or control the land on which the beavers have set up home. This is made worse by the EA withdrawing all maintenance activity from those types of location in many areas. In this way the landowners or farmers could be faced with a cost to manage the impact but no benefit at all, contrary to fairness and possibly infringing the right to enjoyment of private land. Around here this could be a very big deal.

If we are too negative in our responses we risk just being ignored as "antis".
 

bluebell

Member
the population if taught at school as i was, would know that the uks history and mans management of the countryside has gone on here for thousands of years? we are not living in some so called untamed wilderness, like alaska ? But what the hell is taught today of the UKs great history?
 

Happy

Member
Location
Scotland
Utter Madness.
Have had them for 10-15 years in these parts.
Wiped out all the alder, willow and other bank side vegetation on the main river a good few years ago.
Dam building wasn’t a problem there. Whatever they built soon got washed away when river in spate. Burrows collapsing banks was biggest issue.
Numbers have exploded in the past couple of years so now they are moving out into all the tributaries, damming field ditches and stopping drains from emptying and silting up instead.

Even the powers that be are accepting this and are issuing licences for landowners to control them.
You don’t want them being released anywhere near your land.
 
Last edited:

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
My fear is that we will never be able to control/cull them.
Any requests etc will be replied with tough sh1t, (in the form of al least 3 A4 sides of jargon filled meaningless guff!)

Like the birds of prey, badgers etc.

Decimate the wildlife and landscape forever and then it can’t be put back.

Not to mention all of the added costs from property damage, as well as all that associated with protection, surveys, etc.
 

sahara

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Somerset
Not to mention all of the added costs from property damage, as well as all that associated with protection, surveys, etc.
That's the thing, its economic vandalism on a huge scale, what happens when there is a beaver dam near a vital piece of our national infrastructure. I can just see it " RAF runway flooded because of beaver dam" " No you cant touch it " says Environment Agency. Bonkers!
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
My fear is that we will never be able to control/cull them.
Any requests etc will be replied with tough sh1t, (in the form of al least 3 A4 sides of jargon filled meaningless guff!)
I agree. Ifear the legal route to address the problem will take 12 months + and cost £000's, forcing small farmers to become criminals or lose lots of money.

It needs a thorough regulatory impact assessment written around the impact on the smaller, lower income, farms before it goes any further. The law has to work for everyone after all.

Anyone up for a campaign of lobbying our MP's?
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
My fear is that we will never be able to control/cull them.
Any requests etc will be replied with tough sh1t, (in the form of al least 3 A4 sides of jargon filled meaningless guff!)

Just realised…..we’re looking at controlling/culling the wrong species.

The beavers aren’t the problem….it’s those campaigners/government bodies that want to release them.

Are they protected? I wondered whether we could get a licence to control them….

They say prevention is better than cure.
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
In a nutshell;

Defra are looking to help projects to release beavers.
They will give money to those helping but will not give any money to those affected.
Projects will be given ministry assistance but will prosecute any individual who might try to manage the consequences of beavers without their agreement.

It is an extremely one-sided arrangement.

Given this and the experince of un @Happy I would suggest that everyone takes the necessary actions to ensure no beavers get established in their vicinity.
 

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
What exactly is the purpose of reintroducing these animals anyway?
Will we be reintroducing bears, sabre toothed tigers, T.Rex, brontosaurs etc too? Those long necked buggers would make some mess of your maize fields! You'd be glad to have brock back. :D
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
What exactly is the purpose of reintroducing these animals anyway?
Will we be reintroducing bears, sabre toothed tigers, T.Rex, brontosaurs etc too? Those long necked buggers would make some mess of your maize fields! You'd be glad to have brock back. :D
I have long been pushing for the reintroduction of velociraptors if we are reintroducing random gone animals
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top