Tim Bonner: Why grouse moors, not the RSPB, deliver more nature

The RSPB has renewed calls for grouse shooting to be licensed in England. Its justification is that apparently “many are calling for sustainable land management and more nature in our uplands”. That is a laudable aim, but what the RSPB does not explain is how regulation of grouse shooting might achieve it. More than that it is not clear why the RSPB would consider itself in a position to sit in judgement on management and nature recovery in the uplands. To say it has a mixed record on upland management would be generous and upland reserves like Vyrnwy in North Wales have become nature deserts after decades of RSPB management.

Meanwhile, the evidence continues to pile up to show that grouse moors are delivering “more nature”. For instance, Bolton estate in Wensleydale had 250 breeding pairs of curlew this year which dwarfs anything that the RSPB has achieved.

The RSPB’s continuing reluctance to admit the central role of predator control in management generally, and upland management in particular, is one of the key reasons it is less successful in delivering more nature than managed grouse moors. In other habitats, such as the islands of Orkney and Shetland, the removal of non-native predators has been central to the RSPB’s successful management for ground nesting species.

In Northern Ireland it has used fencing to exclude foxes and other predators from islands in Lough Erne which are critical curlew breeding sites. Yet, when it comes to landscape scale predator management in the uplands it will not accept the lessons that gamekeepers and grouse moor managers have learned over generations.

Sadly, the RSPB’s answer is not then to copy the methods that work so well on grouse moors, but instead to attack grouse shooting. Presumably, it thinks that fuelling a political battle over grouse shooting will divert attention from its own failures in the uplands.

This tactic will not work. Firstly, because its justification is that birds of prey are allegedly being persecuted. No illegal killing of protected species can be justified, but as the RSPB knows, numbers of nearly every species of bird of prey are at a historic high and crime convictions are at a record low. There is simply no case for legislation.

Secondly, we will ensure that the comparisons between the RSPB’s failure and the success of grouse moor management continue to be made however hard the RSPB tries to cover up its failures.

This obsession with restricting and regulating what other people do, rather than a focus on delivering “sustainable land management and more nature” where they manage landscapes themselves is an increasingly common behaviour of environmental organisations. Farmers and landowners know that managing the countryside is tough and that it requires difficult decisions to be made.

Far too many in the environmental movement think that a bit of moral high ground and some branded fleeces will deliver nature recovery. They will not, nor will a pointless political debate about regulating grouse shooting.