Tree planting 'threatening' Scotland's grand vistas

I’ve just seen this elsewhere, I don’t think it’s been posted before. It’s a short clip showing natural renewal of Scots Pine on the Mar Lodge estate…

Watch this video to see how regeneration of the Caledonian pinewood has progressed on the slopes of Carn Crom since 2005 on @MarLodgeNTS pic.twitter.com/InkUQ5A3WS

— Mar Lodge Estate (@MarLodgeNTS) January 27, 2017

PS – as a (relatively new) RSPB member I view them as being slow or unwilling to involve themselves in the whole driven grouse shooting scandal, as I see it. Possibly they are restricted by their original constitution.

How many winky smilies did you need TJ!

I don’t think their logic stands up to any scrutiny. They threw their toys out of the pram.

http://www.countryside-alliance.org/alliance-statement-rspb-withdrawal-hen-harrier-action-plan/

Ok 🙄

they had no option as they were being played for patsies. the very folk who were supposed to be implementing the plan continued to kill hen harriers. NO progress at all was being made – by continuing with it they were giving the killers a fig leaf to cover themselves

Is a poor excuse. Just as the RSPB aren’t responsible for all their members behaviour, nor are the GWCT responsible for theirs- or indeed estates with no links to any of the flagship organisations. By walking away from a potential solution, they made their true intentions clear. Power and control- fuelled by jealousy of private land ownership and stewardship on a scale they can only dream of.

The RSPB are so transparent it makes me cringe. Song birds are in decline right? Seriously so in many cases- like 60% + in a decade for some species.
Yet when asked whether the 55million song birds killed by cats every year are an issue they roll out their stock answer of

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season

Yet the 50 or so Raptors killed illegally each year- despite every species showing a population increase- are a national disaster.

Hypocrisy. Power. Control. Donations.

Nonsense crosshair. Its nothing to do with jealousy or power. Its about conservation. My father chaired the RSPB in scotland a a series of other conservation and education organisations for many years. A man less interested in power you would never meet. He was driven by a sense of public service and conservation.

Members of the organisations continued to kill hen harriers and the organisations did nothing about it apart from continuing to try to use the RSPB as a fig leaf.

while you continue to demonise the RSPB you will continue to drive shooting into a corner from which it will never escape.

crosshair – Member
…Licensing shoots seems to me to be about control and jealousy- the true source of most anti-shooting rhetoric I think.

Or maybe it’s revulsion at the mentality of the the people whose idea of fun is to go kill something.

“We’re gonna build a wall, a wall made out of trees to keep the Scots out, and we’re gonna make em’ pay for it”

Or something lyke.

Not read all the posts here as it has got long by the time I’ve found it, aware of the article, thread has gone off into minor semi-related squabble as expected.

My viewpoint summarised; trees are good, lots of them.

crosshair – why did the organisations that represent the shooters not expel people convicted of wildlife crimes?

For those wanting further education of upland moor management the book “Inglorious” provides a pretty good basis. Mind you only the first half was worth reading for me, the second half wandered a bit.

And most gamekeepers are bad if measured against the legislation.

I think unless they get their house in order and pretty quickly licensing will happen in Scotland. Then we will see a change a the criminal estates lose their licenses and the good ones reap the rewards

Ok- start another thread epicyclo if you’d like a serious answer to that one but in summary, it’s pretty hard to function in the modern world without having equally as much blood on your hands as any who choose to pick up a gun- whether meat eater or perfect vegan.

TJ- just as there are good folk in the RSPB (they had a tent at the Game Fair and I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to the people on there) so there are bad eggs in shooting- and I don’t speak in defence of those who should know better.
I don’t know the exact incidents you are referring to but no keeper convicted of an offence could retain membership of the NGO or SGA.

Here you go crosshairs – one estate newlands, notorious for raptor persecution and with criminal convictions for its staff is merely suspended and the gamekeepers association refuses to say if the criminal gamekeeper involved has been removed from member ship.

This is also the estate that is under prosecution for vicarious liability and is doing its very best to lobby and wriggle its way out with the case now delayed a year
https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2016/11/23/statement-from-wildlife-estates-scotland-on-membership-status-of-newlands-estate/

gamekeepers convicted of wildlife crime almost always retain their jobs

Have a read of this blog to understand the real scale of this and the difficulty in getting prosecutions. Especially this – yes its only hearsay –

Perhaps most revealing have been the extremely disturbing discussions with several individuals within the shooting world, typically gamekeepers, about the way many grouse shooting estates are actually operating. These people allege that the majority of driven grouse shooting estates are involved in some level of raptor persecution, though the scale of this can vary significantly. At the very worst end of the scale, some estates are reportedly killing in excess of 200 raptors per year, akin to the horrific accounts traditionally linked to the Victorian period.

From the wealth of evidence available, I have no doubt this is organised crime and, despite raptor persecution becoming one of the government UK wildlife crime priorities in 2009, I have not seen any meaningful improvement in the levels of enforcement.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/skydancer/b/skydancer/archive/2016/11/09/a-hen-harrier-named-rowan.aspx

recently-retired Chief Inspector Kevin Findlater MBE, a former senior wildlife crime officer

Illegal persecution of hen harriers on grouse moors will only stop when the risks of being caught outweigh the present benefits of committing such crimes. A realisation of this truth makes it easier to understand why such crimes take place and why current laws and the enforcement effort are ill suited to stopping them.

Such persecution takes place because those who manage grouse moors believe that the predatory impact of harriers on grouse, left unchecked, makes running a grouse moor financially unsustainable. Those prepared to break the law have considered both the risks of being caught and prosecuted are sufficiently unlikely they are prepared to countenance and sometimes undertake the illegal killing of harriers.

crosshair – Member
Ok- start another thread epicyclo if you’d like a serious answer to that one but in summary, it’s pretty hard to function in the modern world without having equally as much blood on your hands as any who choose to pick up a gun- whether meat eater or perfect vegan.

I have nothing against hunting for the pot. I have done it.

It’s killing animals for fun, or “sport” that I have a problem with.

Crosshairs / Ninfan ( I know he is taking a rest )

This map shows the scale of the issue.It related to golden eagles. green areas are favourable conservation status. amber unfavourale but only failed one test, red unfavourable failed more than one test. Purple dots are raptor persecution incidents
See the correlations? Red areas are mainly where the grouse moors are. Persecution incidents match fairly closely and again are mainly in the grouse moor areas.

If it hasn’t been mentioned, Feral By George Monbiot is well worth the read on this. Having done so, and just received my copy ‘Joining the Dots’ yesterday (and this nothing against that), the pictures in it make me sad. The highlands are so obviously a desert once you’ve had your eyes opened to it

Jimmy – I agree, the Highlands has big issues.

However there is a huge rural industry and culture built up around hour our land is managed, and how we do our don’t make money that supports a local economy.

We are also in a place where from a biodiversity point of view it will take hundreds of years to really return to ‘natural’ (what ever that is).

We are also in a place where there are more competing human pressures and views than ever before.

In my view this means that some of the environmentalist and re-wilding lobby are going to cause as many problems as they solve. I am totally behind a shift from hunting and shooting, sheep and energy’s dominance to a more balanced, biodiverse, tourism farming and cultural farming place. However it needs to be more pragmatic and constructive than some of the arguments (like the cause of this thread) than it currently is.