Charles Clover is a distinguished environmental journalist whose book, The End of the Line is an excellent read (and now a film). Charles understands the countryside quite well too but today in his Sunday Times column he has a go at Hilary Benn for announcing his review of ecological networks last week. This is a shame, as putting back natural beauty is a good thing to do and I think Charles would normally agree with it. He must have got out of bed on the wrong side!
And we don't know exactly what the Defra review will cover yet - there may be more to criticise when we know more about it! Mr Clover seems very worried that Mr Benn is thinking of letting lynxes, beavers and elks loose in England - a bit of an over-reaction to about two sentences in a speech which didn't mention elk, beaver or lynx at all! Mr Clover is worried about white-tailed eagles too - another species not mentioned in Mr Benn's speech!
Let's touch on white-tailed eagles though. Natural England (with the RSPB as a partner) is consulting the public on their thoughts on reintroducing white-tailed eagles into coastal Suffolk. The habitat is pretty similar to those areas of eastern Europe where white-tailed eagles are common and it seems to us that putting these magnificant birds back into areas from which they were exterminated hundreds of years ago is a great idea.
But it's not a done deal! There are some legitimate worries about letting lots of powerful eagles go in one place and we would require that to be looked into thoroughly before allowing any of our sites in Suffolk (such as Minsmere, although we have others) to be used. We'd look pretty foolish if a few white-tailed eagles ate up all the bitterns in Suffolk but experts from eastern Europe, where bitterns and eagles co-exist, tell us not to be so silly - it'll never happen! Maybe we'll see. The process is quite important - because the area has several Special Protection Areas designated under the EU Birds Directive there must be an appropriate assessment made on whether this plan or project will harm the interest of the SPA. It's only right that a project like this needs to be thought through and carried out properly. But restoring ecological corridors and networks isn't really about predators - it's about more, large, natural places. And if we had more large natural areas then we would almost certainly have more predators and more prey - in fact, more nature!
Mr Clover suggests that Mr Benn picked on predator release as a class issue - urban socialists are apparently gagging for lynxes and eagles to carry off the lambs of rural tories! Well, remember that Mr Benn's speech didn't actually mention any predators at all!
And I listened to Mr Benn's speech at Brighton and it hardly got rapturous applause from the class warriors! My worry is that, if anything, the Labour Party looked a bit uninterested in the Secretary of State's speech! So not really the 'Prescottian class conflict' that Mr Clover thinks! And I'll let Mr Clover into a secret - the Parliamentary Constituency of Suffolk Coastal is the one with the highest number of RSPB members in the country! I'm sure some of our members there, as elsewhere, might have doubts about white-tailed eagles - and we'd like to hear both from them and those in favour of a white-tailed eagle reintroduction.
Well Mark I have a open mind about Sea Eagles in East Anglia but I can look at it in more objective way than lots of experts who because they have spent a massive amount of time with them are biased,not that they mean to be but it is a inevitable thing.When I was farming for 45 years I became so wrapped up in it that it seemed everything should revolve around dairy farming but now retired am able to take a more balanced view(just mean that as example).On top of other concerns I have raised perhaps another very important one is the lives of the birds themselves as to me I am concerned about the losses in the reintroduction,if Norway has sent us 200+ chicks and over 200 have been hatched considering they are a long lived bird how come only 200 in country are persecution deaths or deaths on pylons or some being hidden,can't help but feel something fishy going on.Remember these birds would in all likelihood live a good natural life in Norway as it seems that Sea Eagles as far as I am aware almost all chicks survive not just the strongest one.Complete red herring about Bitterns co existing in other countries our population of Bitterns is small to say the least and they would have the disadvantage of not being used to having Sea Eagles as predators.Hope I have given you food for thought and it would be nice if you have some answers.The cost of compensating,farmers ,free range poultry,free range pig farmers,shoots and many more who jump on band wagon would be astronomical and it is already difficult to justify doing it on Mull and not other places,unless you are prepared to compensate I believe persecution losses would be horrendous.Of course almost certainly you would get one pair or perhaps even more who would find shall we say free range hens easy pickings and live exclusively on them.I think one pair in the Hebrides took about 92 Fulmars to their chicks so it does seem to happen.I think i may have gone on a bit really but would hate to see lots of wonderful Sea Eagles killed.