Hen Harriers, the RSPB and the way forward

Countryside Alliance Head of Shooting Campaigns Liam Stokes writes: Having spent four years engaged in developing the Hen Harrier Joint Action Plan (HHJAP), it took the RSPB less than seven months to abandon it. In a quite extraordinary move, the charity decided seven months was enough time to judge the success of a long term plan that had barely begun to be implemented.

Let's hope this is not an indication of the RSPB's direction of travel. The hallmark of the HHJAP is collaboration, bringing together government, landowners, scientists and conservation charities, uniting them behind a clear set of actions and recognising that all must participate if any strategy is to succeed. This remains the case; a plan that doesn't have the backing of all stakeholders is doomed to fail. Yet the RSPB have jettisoned their support for such a consensus in favour of a plan completely of their own devising, threatening to bury the countryside in a new bureaucracy of licensing and observation.

This project was always going to take time to work, these projects always do. The charity cites recent allegations of persecution, but the plan is designed to tackle exactly this sort of criminality through cooperation. The RSPB simply can't tackle this issue on its own. So why this retreat from finding a practical solution? It is hard to escape the feeling that the RSPB is sliding away from their claimed "neutrality" on shooting. Conservation Director Martin Harper quite rightly pointed out last year that suggestions the RSPB were anti-shooting strained the charity's relationship with farmers. How much further will these relationships be strained when these suggestions come not just from the press, but so clearly from the RSPB's actions and social media posts.

I have pointed out before that factions within the RSPB always seemed to be rooting for the HHJAP to fail, and were attempting to pull the once-sensible conservation charity closer to the fringe animal rights agenda of the League Against Cruel Sports. They mustn't be allowed to be succeed. The conservation work the RSPB undertakes on the ground is immensely valuable, and many of their wardens and volunteers work well with their local shoots and gamekeepers. Yet despite precipitous declines in woodland and farmland birds across the country, the upper-echelons of the RSPB are increasingly investing time, energy and resources into fighting shooting, despite the fact it provides landscape-scale conservation that is crucial in the protection of many endangered and vulnerable bird species. Calling for "gamebird hunting" to be licensed in Scotland, battling for lead ammunition to be banned despite the Government rejecting the idea, and now pledging support for the HHJAP and almost immediately withdrawing it with maximum publicity. It is hard not to suspect the hand of their Vice President, anti-shooting campaigner and BBC presenter Chris Packham, in this increasingly hostile approach.

RSPB employees have taken to their blogs to announce the HHJAP has "failed". This is nonsense. It has barely begun. It will continue without the RSPB, and it will succeed without the RSPB. This is genuinely sad, but the groups that remain invested in securing a future for the hen harrier represent gamekeepers and landowners who must deliver the results where they matter, on the ground. It will be their victory when the plan succeeds in the fullness of time and the hen harriers' future is secured.

Follow Liam on Twitter @LNJStokes and follow the Shooting Campaign @CA_Shooting.