Parliamentary debate on farming on Dartmoor (18th April), Natural England’s rewilding aspirations beyond Dartmoor, and what you need to do.

[egbert]

As many forum members will be aware, Natural England have launched a full on assault on keeping livestock on Dartmoor. They’re trying to impose cuts up to 90%, including the 100% removal of winter grazing hill ewes.

They are also known to be gunning for the farmers on West Penwith in Cornwall, and to be targeting big dairy farms on the Somerset Levels with the regional director saying he’ll get them ‘gone inside 10 years’. (see post below).

They’re publicly trying to downplay these goals, while driving them forward behind the scenes. It is clearly based in the ‘rewilding’ ideology, as promoted by (IMO) that horrid little Guardian columnist.

The National Trust are also pursuing similar goals, pushing tenants to either tree-up and rewild, or simply vacate so the NT can do it themselves- as shown by a (much nicer) erstwhile Farmers Weekly columnist.

The ‘carbon’ market is swallowing land wholesale, the protected beavers are expected to flood all kinds of low lying farmland beyond productive ability. It is everywhere.

The aforementioned debate will almost certainly touch on NE’s behaviour elsewhere, and the wider subject.

If you want to see productive farming – at whatever degree of wildlife friendliness- continued in England, then you need to email/write to your MP well before this debate.

Emailing Ministers is almost useless, as they simply bat such things aside.

Your MP needs reminding about the employment and financial implications that arise when large tracts of farmland are simply taken out of production. The fact that many farm operations aren’t very profitable in their own right doesn’t mean they don’t support and employ large numbers of people (taxpaying voting people) downstream. Request detail of how they’ll act.

As social media exposure has shown, the general public are outraged when they realise what the plans will actually mean.

This subject needs exploding now, as the opposite side gain momentum.

PM me if you need further guidance.

 

[egbert]

(Unedited version of) Western Morning News column 6th April

The birdsong around me suggests spring is in the air, as does the ravens assertion of their buzzard ‘no-fly zone’, protecting airspace under which they’re surely cooking up a clutch of young ravens. I’m about to start lambing, and know a handful of the first lambs will be disembowelled to feed these corvid chicks, until the volume of afterbirth and leftovers satiates everyone. I’m already calving the South Devon cows, and the gallons of placental material from them soon helps keep the wildlife occupied, as we all work around the turning of the seasons. Last Friday’s rainstorm tried me mightily, with new claves on the ground. We worked hard in brutal conditions, and somehow the only casualty was one poor ‘week old’ which got itself into the porridge beside a feeder. We got it in and warmed up again, but the jury is still out on whether it’ll survive.



There’s no change in Natural England’s position on Dartmoor. They are publicly talking about ‘having dialogue’ and ‘working with the farmers’. In private, the story is the same…getting rid of the livestock is the clear demand. The regional head met some of us this week, and isn’t giving an inch.

Interestingly, he’s also lately been caught going into a local college, indoctrinating 6th form environmental studies students. He assures them his organisation is going to heal the environment, citing how badly Dartmoor is overgrazed. He brags about one common where he’s been getting good results, not mentioning his minions are now trying to force a 90% livestock reduction on it. Curiously, he also doesn’t tell the students that the commons so badly damaged have been under NE agreements and stocking rules for 20 years. Apparently it is just the farmer’s fault. I’m not sure this kind of propaganda belongs in the classroom.

What is also emerging is evidence that NE are also intending to venture into richer farming country, and hit much more productive systems as well. Along with the dairy farms on West Penwith, this fellow delighted in telling these students how he was also aiming at dairy farms on the Somerset Levels. There, he boasted to students, he’d have them ‘closed down inside 10 years’…and then delights that ‘it’ll all be water again’. He thinks this will be fantastic. Since you will have to pay more for your groceries, you may not wholeheartedly agree.


Speaking of the childish rewilding doctrine….on every rewilder’s bookshelf sits a copy of ‘Collapse’, by Jared Diamond. It’s a fairly dry analysis by an American academic of a number of defunct historic societies, whose collapse might be attributed to their failure to foresee or adapt to environmental challenges. The ‘Anasazi’ Pueblo cultures of the dusty SW corner of the USA feature, along with the Polynesian culture on Easter Island, and critically the Norse settlement on Greenland, which failed after 400 years. And as far as it goes, it’s an interesting enough book. You can pick gaping holes in it, but it certainly has warning signs for modern humanity about ignoring the overtaxing of the environment that supports you.

I’m not sure Diamond brings you quite to the point he aims at- it didn’t in my case as I was already there. He certainly doesn’t in the case of the ‘rewilders’, because there is a fabulous irony in their current direction of travel. The ‘rewilding’ concept has infiltrated so many peoples thinking that whole tracts of westernised developed countries are now being rededicated to nature. This makes people feel warm and cosy, and imagine they’re stopping the rot. Attempting to drive Dartmoor’s pastoralists off their historic grazing is part of their triumphant march. Sadly, they take Diamonds observations at a localised level, when I believe he meant it as a global view. By beating the UK’s farmers down, re-afforesting whole estates of National Trust land, and blocking drains on previously improved and ploughed arable land, we are simply exporting our food requirements to faraway countries who are less ‘enlightened’. Simultaneously our population and their expectations grow. Since we already have 30 million people we cannot feed, and an imbalance grows daily, it isn’t difficult to see there is a problem ahead. Because if you think riots over loo roll shortages are a sight to behold, consider the vista when tens of millions of people discover supper is going to be very late indeed.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that acolytes of Diamond’s ‘Collapse’ are determinedly pushing us at exactly the short-sighted disaster he illustrates. Their ignorance of reality is breath-taking to any time-served farmer. I’m sorry for their hopeless myopathy, but can only shrug my shoulders.

What can I do?

 

[Swarfmonkey]

if you think riots over loo roll shortages are a sight to behold, consider the vista when tens of millions of people discover supper is going to be very late indeed.

A point that needs to be rammed home, repeatedly, at every opportunity.

If the NE & DEFRA morons saw even half of what my older brother saw at first hand in a couple of African countries in '08 during the food riots they'd be doing their utmost to make the UK as self sufficient as possible* instead of trying to turn it into a glorified safari park. Their lives could very well depend on it.


*It'll never be anywhere near 100% self sufficient, but you get my drift.

 

[Bald Rick]

It’s a small point but I see that the wild campers have won the right to challenge the landlord who tried to ban them

Dartmoor wild camping hopes rise as park wins right to appeal against ban

Authority given permission to challenge high court ruling in favour of landowner

www.theguardian.com

May not be so keen when they have to try and pitch their tents in the middle of bracken and gorse

 

[egbert]

It’s a small point but I see that the wild campers have won the right to challenge the landlord who tried to ban them

Dartmoor wild camping hopes rise as park wins right to appeal against ban

Authority given permission to challenge high court ruling in favour of landowner

www.theguardian.com

May not be so keen when they have to try and pitch their tents in the middle of bracken and gorse

I believe it is the National Park authority doing the challenging.
Gov found them the money, and then had to award all other NPs the same moneys to be fair.

What you say about the gorse is exactly right, although the wild campers are generally not aligned with the farmers, so I suspect they won't kick up about the stock removals. (rewild has 'wild' in it...innit? Must be good.)

 

[Bald Rick]

I believe it is the National Park authority doing the challenging.
Gov found them the money, and then had to award all other NPs the same moneys to be fair.

What you say about the gorse is exactly right, although the wild campers are generally not aligned with the farmers, so I suspect they won't kick up about the stock removals. (rewild has 'wild' in it...innit? Must be good.)

Multiple problems with destocking uplands.

As keen hill walkers, time permitting, Mrs BR & I are seeing the effects in parts of Snowdonia NP where heather and Sitka spruce are starting to dominate some slopes making access extremely difficult.
The other main issue is the build up of combustible material. Surely the park authorities recognise that both grazing and discrete burning massively reduces this threat? Or do they simply not care so long as it fits their current agenda?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Multiple problems with destocking uplands.

As keen hill walkers, time permitting, Mrs BR & I are seeing the effects in parts of Snowdonia NP where heather and Sitka spruce are starting to dominate some slopes making access extremely difficult.
The other main issue is the build up of combustible material. Surely the park authorities recognise that both grazing and discrete burning massively reduces this threat? Or do they simply not care so long as it fits their current agenda?

As Sitka spruce is not native and plantations of it tend to be sterile monocultures, surely a better word for that would be dewilding?

 

[egbert]

Multiple problems with destocking uplands.

As keen hill walkers, time permitting, Mrs BR & I are seeing the effects in parts of Snowdonia NP where heather and Sitka spruce are starting to dominate some slopes making access extremely difficult.
The other main issue is the build up of combustible material. Surely the park authorities recognise that both grazing and discrete burning massively reduces this threat? Or do they simply not care so long as it fits their current agenda?

The Fire Service are extremely concerned. We're awaiting a formal response.

The 'park' ?
A lot of them now are rewilders themselves, seemingly.
The CEO stood in front of us last May and told us we would have to move the sheep.
Mind, he'd previously invited Moonbat as the guest speaker at a big soiree, so no-ne should've been surprised.

 

[Jonp]

The only way to rewild is to fence off an area and shut the gate. No access to anyone. I would imagine that the ramblers , wild campers and right to roamers etc wouldn't be happy.
If they don't shut the gate then what they will be doing is destroying farming culture and livelihoods to create a theme park that will cost a fortune to keep accessable and that very theme park will rapidly change into something the general public do not like.

 

[egbert]

The only way to rewild is to fence off an area and shut the gate. No access to anyone. I would imagine that the ramblers , wild campers and right to roamers etc wouldn't be happy.
If they don't shut the gate then what they will be doing is destroying farming culture and livelihoods to create a theme park that will cost a fortune to keep accessable and that very theme park will rapidly change into something the general public do not like.

Astonishingly, there are already 3 softtraks bought/ordered, principally for - as far as i know- cutting the trash back. £100k a pop.

 

[Bury the Trash]

As keen hill walkers,

never quite got that walking for pleasure thing always find something more productive or relaxing to do rather than wearing my knees and hips out any quicker than they in farmer work anyway

Having said that i have had a want for some time to do the 'Two Moors Walk' that bisects my County on foot rather than a view from a road .

 

[Bury the Trash]

I believe it is the National Park authority doing the challenging.
Gov found them the money, and then had to award all other NPs the same moneys to be fair.

What you say about the gorse is exactly right, although the wild campers are generally not aligned with the farmers, so I suspect they won't kick up about the stock removals. (rewild has 'wild' in it...innit? Must be good.)

hopeffully unfortunately those 'wild campers' might get a Tick bite on their arse.

 

[Old apprentice]

hopeffully unfortunately those 'wild campers' might get a Tick bite on their arse.

Put signs up telling people about lymes disease if you walk the Moore's but there is a worse disease in the offing than lymes sorry can't remember what you call it also point out that well managed sheep help to keep these diseases under control. If the Moore is left to go to rubbish no one will want to walk in a tick invested area. As I have said before they are steeling the land Stalin would be proud.

 

[Tamar]

Unfortunately the people that make these ridiculous decisions, are so called 'clever' people that have gone to University and got a degree.

But they are complete idiots when common sense comes into play .

It takes generations of learning to know what the moors need and how it should be managed.

Total twots !

 

[Bald Rick]

never quite got that walking for pleasure thing always find something more productive or relaxing to do rather than wearing my knees and hips out any quicker than they in farmer work anyway

Having said that i have had a want for some time to do the 'Two Moors Walk' that bisects my County on foot rather than a view from a road .

Enjoy a nice walk (sp?) … followed by a hot bath.

 

[Exfarmer]

Put signs up telling people about lymes disease if you walk the Moore's but there is a worse disease in the offing than lymes sorry can't remember what you call it also point out that well managed sheep help to keep these diseases under control. If the Moore is left to go to rubbish no one will want to walk in a tick invested area. As I have said before they are steeling the land Stalin would be proud.

Think you are thinking of Lyme borne Encephalitis a brain disease which has recently been imported

 

[Old apprentice]

You are spot on. My wife met another farmers wife and they were discussing tiks, and Lyme disease she said they had a scrub wood next to them and she said they did there best to keep sheep from getting in this wood they did not like going in this wood it was full of tiks and the sheep got covered when they had got in.!

 

[Flatlander]

With tics it’s not just in warmer weather farmers can be exposed to them. My neighbour has 300 ewes and I was sorting them with him one February and looked deep into the fleece and they were full of tics. His sheep are housed in winter but its still -40 at times. Shearing time isn’t much fun I’m told.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Unfortunately the people that make these ridiculous decisions, are so called 'clever' people that have gone to University and got a degree.

But they are complete idiots when common sense comes into play .

It takes generations of learning to know what the moors need and how it should be managed.

Total twots !

Pity the two different opinions don't do a bit of knowledge exchange.

 

[egbert]

Pity the two different opinions don't do a bit of knowledge exchange.

One side have tried for decades....but they are ill educated peasants, and their views and experience are merely 'anecdotal'

I've spent many days sat in meetings with tables full of the degree holders taking the decisions.
Whatever they say is right, whilst whatever I say (unless it ties exactly with what they want) is met with warm words and honied phrases...but not minuted, researched, or taken on board at all.
Their arrogance is astonishing.

If I start asking questions they don't like the sound of*, they stop holding formal meetings, to save themselves from hearing such heresy.
Working parties and panels are convened, inviting either no actual farmers, or only those who they think they'll control.

*there is a blindspot in their heads, where the presumption is that someone without a degree must be dim, and incapable of going off and learning something outside their field.