Chris Packham and his Wild Justice pals have launched an online petition to ban driven grouse shooting, for the third time in recent years.
Despite the last two debates being utterly conclusive in favour of driven grouse shooting, Wild Justice are hoping enough of the new MPs may not yet have taken the trouble to find out about the reality of moorland management.
Much has changed since the first debate, but not everything. We are still faced with the same joyless trio; the big one who thinks he knows everything, the little one who knows he knows everything, and the other one who does the work.
We are also faced with the same specious arguments, despite the fact that since the first attempt lots of emerging science and sound research has undermined the trio's assertions to the point that even they should be having second thoughts
We can assume, as the smuggest one has lots of followers, thanks to a combination of his profile on the 'impartial BBC', and his extremely partial attacks on people who cannot answer back, they are likely to get the 100,000 signatures needed for another debate to be considered. So what do we do?
We would suggest that you speak to your MP. At least write a brief letter or e-mail. Be polite and to the point. What to say?
It might be worth pointing out that all moorland communities want is to be able to get on with their lives. The attacks on grouse shooting are not based in fact or science, and banning grouse shooting - or any other form of legal shooting - would only reduce biodiversity and the conservation of rare habitats and species.
It might also be worth explaining that the new Labour Government began its term with a great deal of goodwill from rural areas. The previous administration had rather taken the rural vote for granted and many hoped that the incoming government would, as it had repeatedly said, approach rural issues with a more sensitive ear and touch.
You would have to be living in a cave in the Gobi Desert not to have noticed that things have not turned out quite as we, and presumably the Labour Party, hoped.
In the present climate is gratuitously picking another fight with a rural minority, just to please Chris Packham, (who probably votes Green anyway), really good politics?
That said, it may be helpful to refresh our understanding of the issues that have been singled out as the key reasons that grouse shooting must, according to the ghastly trio, be banned.
This is what the petition actually says:
“Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery (Wild Justice) believe that driven grouse shooting is bad for people, the environment and wildlife.
People; we think grouse shooting is economically insignificant when contrasted with other real and potential uses of the UK’s extensive uplands.
Environment; muirburn contributes to climate breakdown and drainage leads to flooding and erosion.
Wildlife; the wholesale extermination of predators has a disastrous impact on the ecology of these areas and the criminal practice of raptor persecution has taken place.
We believe it's time to provide an opportunity to implement immediate and meaningful measures to address what we see as an abhorrently destructive practice so that recovery of moorlands can progress”.
So, what are the answers to these assertions?
No 1. Grouse shooting is economically insignificant when contrasted with other real and potential uses of the UK's extensive uplands.
What are these 'real and potential uses' that grouse shooting is preventing? It's a mystery. Do they even exist? The obvious real ones can, and already do, take place on grouse moors.
One of the great lies used by the gang of three is that we are faced with a binary choice. For them it is grouse or tourism. Grouse or wind energy, or water, or grazing, or hang gliding, or mountain biking. It is not. It is a false choice, artificially created to mislead.
All these activities already share the beautiful space maintained by privately owned grouse moors.
The one existing alternative use that can't share the space is forestry. That's not to say that successful grouse moors can't have trees and benefit as a result. They can, and lots of owners have been sensitively planting the right trees in the right places for years.
What can't be accommodated is large scale commercial plantation forestry, with all the horrors that brings, but it is hard to believe that any informed conservationist would think that it was a good idea to replace one of the world’s rarest habitats with something as unnatural as plantation forestry.
What about the others? The mysterious 'potential uses'. Why are they not specified? The answer is perfectly simple. They can't think of any. Indeed when Mark Avery was recently asked in parliament what alternative he proposed to driven grouse shooting he responded that ‘it was not his job to come up with alternatives.’
Is grouse shootings economic contribution insignificant? Nationally, like most SMEs looked at in isolation, it is. Obviously, compared to the NHS or the car industry, grouse shooting, or the village shop in Reeth or the little tenanted farm up Teesdale where the curlew and lapwing nest, are all 'insignificant', but that is not what it feels like to the keepers, beaters, loaders, and hotels, or the shop owner and their customers or the tenant farmer and his family. What they do isn't economically insignificant to them.
This point was eloquently made SNP MP Dave Doogan at the last debate.
The gang of three are all comfortably off. Indeed Chris Packham is a rich man. It is frankly shocking to see them dismiss the livelihoods of hard working people in deprived rural areas as economically insignificant. Especially when they know perfectly well that its fake.
What follows is a quote from an article in the Field, and for regular readers of that magazine, it may not seem entirely surprising;
“The sport (of grouse shooting) is so thrilling and singular as to bring in good money, which supports the local economy. As well as the economic and social benefits there are ecological benefits-management of moorland for red grouse favours other species such as some waders that are generally declining in the UK including curlew, golden plover and lapwing”.
Clear evidence, you might think, that its author understands the important local economic significance of driven grouse shooting and that the petition's claims are so much dross. I would agree. I couldn't put it better myself. The person who wrote that ringing endorsement of the economic and conservation value of grouse shooting? Mark Avery, one of the Wild Justice trio. So we can safely assume they know it is fake.
Chris has discussed this issue with his little friends in Revive, an anti-grouse shooting cabal not at all keen on letting free-born men and women decide for themselves how their land should be managed. Their research apparently showed that it would be far more profitable to build houses or use it for horticulture.
It is not clear why these unusual people think that building lots of houses in the wildest country we have is a good idea. Nor is it obvious why we should encourage people to build houses where the use of fossil fuel in large quantities would be essential to survive. It is even less understandable why anyone would think that horticulture is an alternative to grouse moor management 2,000 feet up on deep peat, where it rains most days, and it's a hundred miles from any significant market.
They have not the least idea. They aren't interested in the existing community or the existing economy. They are there to wreck what exists, without a care in the world. When you live in a great house in a high security compound in the heart of the New Forest and watch the cash roll in from TV contracts so lucrative that you won't say how much in case it puts your fans off, you can be as dismissive of other people’s way of life as you like. But it does not make you right. Smug? Yes. Right? No.
Grouse shooting is the backbone of many upland areas. Mark Avery was right when he said that, The sport (of grouse shooting) is so thrilling and singular as to bring in good money, which supports the local economy.
The facts haven't changed. Grouse shooting is economically vital to its locality. It contributes to the local culture and it enhances the well-being of many people in many ways.
There is no need to stop grouse shooting to enable other uses of the landscape. Many already happily co-exist. What has changed is Mark, who sees personal advantage in forgetting that he ever said that it brings in good money, supporting the local economy. But he did and it does. He knows it and so do his friends.