More Trees Needed ...

... and a halt to subsidised shooting.

My last post was about the depression brought on when seeing the irresponsible and ugly clearing of trees on the slopes of Bole Hill.

By coincidence this article appears in the Guardian telling us that the recent floods are at least in part caused by the paying of public money to those who try to stop trees growing in the hills.

The insistence of the conservation industry backed up by Unnatural England that they must do all they can to maintain treeless landscapes in Britain's uplands is backed up by the wealthy campaigners representing the grouse moor owners  - with whom they work hand in glove in the Moors for the Future partnership. That organisation incidentally is the most amazing waste of public money imaginable.What they need to do on high Peak moors is plant thousands of native trees ad keep off the sheep. After that let everything manage itself. But like most projects in the conservation sector it's a massive job creation scheme. You don't produce a website like that without a huge input of public money subsidising a determined self-justification programme.

Here is the link to the informative report on grouse shooting published by Animal Aid as referred to in the Guardian article.

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/booklets/callingtheshots.pdf

I applaud the concluding statement of that report which succinctly states what many of us have been thinking:

Those involved in grouse shooting try to cultivate an air of selfless and astute stewardship of the natural environment. Birds are harvested, pests and vermin are controlled ... and a civilised day out is had by all. In reality,the shooting of grouse and all that goes with it is part of the long tradition of vicious country ‘sports’ that includes badger baiting and dog and cock fighting – activities that society at large has made unlawful because it regards them as uncivilised. Grouse shooting, for now, resists public opposition; it even receives tax payers’ subsidies. But the day cannot be too far off when it too will be consigned to history.

But why on earth do the practices of these hypocritical landowners get reflected so readily in the management of the conservation industry?