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The Bowland Fells (AONB) (seen here from Pendle overlooking Clitheroe) are mostly owned by the Duke of Westminster and the Queen - in the form of the Duchy of Lancaster since 1399. The land is dominated by moors used for grouse shooting. These moors could be managed better by planting trees, that would help stop flooding, provide more jobs, capture carbon and keep lots more soil life. The Queen said on her programme with David Attenborough that she is committed to the Commonwealth's Canopy of trees across the world. I suggest she starts on her own 3,000 acre estate here.
This is called the 'Forest of Bowland' but that does not mean it was always forested. Although 'forests do not mean the same as today - plantations, they would have been quite wooded. 'The Forest Law' was introduced by William the Conquer to denote land that was reserved for the King to shoot creatures - and woe betide anybody else who did. Nevertheless over a period of several hundred years a lot of trees were chopped - for warships during the 1500s and for fuel in 1600's as more land was enclosed - as here.
Grouse are probably the most unsustainable food. The moors were subsidised by EU funds. Now it looks like they won't get as much but still substantial amounts just for owning the land. Already rich land owners earn a lot of money from shooting rights. Over half million hectares of moors are kept for grouse shooting, and 700,000 red grouse are shot annually. The practice of burning the heather for the young grouse to feed upon, has led to a call to 'ban the burn' in Hebden Bridge.
Hen Harrier
Hen Harrier
Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is both an IUCN Protected Area and part of European Landscape Convention focused specifically on landscape.
As you enter, you see these signs welcoming you with the image of a Hen Harrier.
At certain times of the year - in March on clear days, these magnificent birds 'dance' in the sky. So the local name for the bird is 'Sky Dancer' and this is celebrated in the local Bowland brewery 'called 'Sky Dancer'
But you will be very lucky to see a bird like this hovering over the hills.
The latest recognises, but doeos not answer it
The rarity of Hen Harriers, despite acres of ideal hunting grounds is usually put down to a conflict with gamekeepers, who want to keep as many grouse chicks as possible, but are the prey of hen harriers. If you grow grouse, you don’t want Hen Harriers - there is a basic biological conflict. There are many accusations going back many years that the Duke of Westminster, the richest person in Britain, who owns vast tracks of land round here, makes them disappear. See 2001 English Nature and RSPB. However any such comments, we were told by the TV man, are deemed ‘not helpful’. The landowners say they are cooperating and numbers are increasing (Guardian 2008). The Duke died in 2017, so it will be interesting to see if there is any recovery of Harrier numbers, but there clearly should be a lot more breeding pairs in this area.
So you may want to find out more at the e-petition ’Ban driven grouse shooting, but check out the other side - Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust where they make the point that it is game shooting, not conservation groups, that provide money to keep rural communities alive. GWCT response to DEFRA response to the e-petition. My point would be that if other forms of farming - particularly forestry, were undertaken there would be a lot more jobs.
The news in 2015 on BBC NW Tonight was that two young harriers bought up round the Trough of Bowland, which had been tagged had suddenly gone missing. These were just about the only ones surviving in England this year. The young birds had been adopted by a local school in Dunsop Bridge - the centre of the UK. The school children were upset at the loss.
Three male harriers 'went missing'. While one female accepted a new young male, the 2 others vacated their nests leaving the eggs. There was an almighty row (on BBC 6 mins in) between RSPB who try and protect the nesting birds and another new organisation called 'You forgot the birds' supported by Ian Botham, who say the RSPB should have taken the eggs and reared them artificially (see below).
The presumption is gamekeepers killing them. But this may not be the only explanation. I spoke with somebody who lived round here when he were a lad and he said he was paid to inject poison in the eggs. But he says that this has stopped now, and that the main risk is capture for sale to China.
In 2017, I did see a Pallid Harrier - a rare visitor from Russia, here in this valley - before it flew over the hill to Dunsop Bridge - the centre of the UK. When the camera panned round to the presenter signing off, I shouted 'I know where that is! I could see a bunch of trees (on left) which I know as Ramsclough Wood. That is where I lived and worked on a farm in the late seventies....for more see Our Farms
Grouse v Harrier War
Grouse v Harrier War
On the surface it is a straightforward war between grouse and harriers, between conservationist and gamekeepers, but there is a lot more to it than that. Can we say that grouse are in any way a sustainable food? The Moorland Association clearly thinks grouse shooting is good for the environment, despite the practice of heather burning which seems probably the most direct contribution to global warming that you can imagine.
A Leeds University study found grouse moor heather burning causes widespread environmental damage. The EMBER (Effects of Moorland Burning on the Ecohydrology of River basins) project has shown that heather burning on moorland, which is practised predominantly to support red grouse populations for gun sports, has significant negative impacts on peat hydrology, peat chemistry and physical properties, river water chemistry and river ecology. They point to the drop in water table, a sign that more is lost in flooding and could help explain the floods in Hebden Bridge (Ban the Burn). The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust don't think the Leeds report should lead to a ban on heather burning. Apparently there is a code and burning just needs ‘mitigation’.
There is also a bigger question here. The Moorland association are proud to claim that 85% of heather moorland is here. The question is why? Why is there as much ‘rough grazing’ in UK as the whole of the rest of Europe?. I would answer that that is because we don’t make such good use of it for farming as the rest of the continent. We get much our food from abroad - nearly half. It was in the 1870/80s, about 30 years after the passing of the Repeal of the Corn Laws, that food started coming in from all over the world, thanks to our ships built in our shipyards, in particular Belfast for refrigerated ships. No wonder we have so much ‘unused’ land. Round our farm – further up the valley you could see where once farmsteads had existed 150 years ago….now just moorland.
When I spoke at the opening of the Durham Sustainable Food event (Youtube) I said that the EU pays people like the Duke of Westminster loads of money just to 'grow grouse'. I was challenged by Lord Curry – he of the famous Curry Report on Farm Sustainability, but more infamously as a proponent of abolishing the Agricultural Wages Board. He said that the money wasn't going to grow grouse, so I asked what did it go for, as there was nothing else to show for all that money. The point I was making is the CAP funds go to land owners for having the land, not for producing any food (apart from a few grouse!). The Duke receives nearly £1/2 m in CAP subsidies, as there is no limit on how much a single person can receive. There were attempts by those awful bureaucrats in EU to limit the amount to about £ ¼ m but thanks to David Cameron’s intervention, there is no cap on CAP. Oh, and April 2015, the government decided to raise the subsidy for grouse moors from £30 to £55 per acre (Monbiot).
Monbiot has a lot to say about how this land could be used – for wilding, much of which I agree with – except the conclusion regarding wilding. That seems like an indulgence when we are barely growing half of our own food and people are starving in the rest of the world as a result. He considers the uplands shouldn’t really be farmed, whereas I think they should be farmed more. Much of that moorland should be put back to forest, preferably with trees that produce nuts, fruits and berries, but also trees like birch can provide sap for fermentation.The wildlife would come in, as would all sorts of jobs and we would also be making a bigger cut to carbon emissions than anything else going. It should also bring in more jobs. Can somebody do the calculation for the carbon saving for going from heather moorland to forest? The Forestry Commission seem to avoid calculating the conversion from UK moorland-forest. I know it is not straightforward, but a ball park figure would do.
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