[RSPB's conservation officer Tom Aspinall hugging a tree ©Facebook]
Tom Aspinall has been a conservation officer in the Peak District since 2020. You might expect that someone in his position ought to know a bit about conservation, and to present his thoughts – and the thoughts of the country’s largest conservation charity – based on facts. But evidently that is not the case with Aspinall.
In a recent video produced by the RSPB on grouse shooting in Peak District, Aspinall makes a series of claims, the facts of which are highly distorted to serve his purposes of campaigning against the practice.
Within the first two minutes Aspinall claims, ‘Unlike hunting and shooting activities in other European nations, driven grouse shooting in the UK, the style of hunting unique to these shores, is subject to very limited regulation’. In reality, as Aspinall would well know, moorland management is one of the most intensely regulated practices of all. Both Natural England and DEFRA have such stringent requirements that most land managers spend more time navigating these than almost any other part off their job.
Aspinall goes on to claim that grouse moor management has ‘resulted in an intensity of management that causes significant harm to some of our most precious landscapes and the habitats and species found there’. He makes no effort to mention that it is only on driven grouse moors where red and amber listed species are bucking the national trend, and rather than ‘causing significant harm’ are actually benefiting hugely as a direct consequence of the management in place.
This has been highlighted over and over again, including recently by leading curlew authority, Mary Colwell, in a talk at Bamford at which Aspinall was said to have been present. The breeding bird survey of the Peak District also reinforced these trends right on Aspinall's doorstep.
There are studies upon studies that demonstrate just how many environmental benefits are brought about by driven grouse shooting, not to mention the social and economic benefits. Yet, Aspinall chooses not to reference any of these, once again deliberately distorting opinion as fact to his audience.
Aspinall’s next main gripe within the video is around controlled burning. Despite being widely recognised by experts around the world as the most effective wildfire mitigation measure, Aspinall knows better apparently. Perhaps we might suggest the RSPB sends a larger delegation to the national wildfire conference, to learn a thing or two. It is little surprise, as we looked at earlier this month, that two of the largest wildfires the UK has ever seen took place on RSPB reserves.
In the video statistics are banded around, often with Aspinall citing ‘official documents’. Only, the contents of those official documents and what Aspinall is suggesting has little in common. For example, seven minutes in, Aspinall quotes a letter he claims is from West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service [WYFRS] requesting an urgent end to controlled burning, as if that is their policy position. Aspinall fails to mention that the WYFRS, like every other fire service in the world, recognise and support the use of controlled burning as a fire prevention measure. The request to stop all controlled burning that year was simply down to the coronavirus lockdown, a key point that Aspinall has failed to include, no doubt as it did not service his maligned agenda.
There is more of course, a lot more, but we’ll save that for another day.