Countryside Alliance - love the countryside

EU & UK Policy Developments

Over the next few years several specific national rural policy changes will be taking effect. We will work to ensure that these do not compromise but, where possible, benefit moorland areas:

Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy could help reduce the incentive for overgrazing by sheep and encouraging more mixed and extensive grazing patterns. However, there is a risk that undergrazing could become a new problem and that vital traditional labour skills and remote moorland communities will be lost. We will lobby for agri-environment incentives to be aimed at re-establishing areas of heather which have been grazed out over the last 50 years, and to expand moorland habitat and wildlife

Open Access to moorlands will help in some areas by bringing in new income but, if not properly implemented and funded, could lead to conflict with people who earn their livelihoods form moorlands. There could also be a negative impact on ground nesting birds, particularly if rules on control of dogs are not properly enforced. There must also be a watertight system of informing access users about permitted closures of moorlands under the 28-day rule. We will work with access authorities to identify and resolve problems

Moorland owners face increasing restrictions on their freedom to manage, due to conservation designations and bureaucracy. While many of these are in line with good practice, some have not been scientifically proven to be necessary – for instance reduced heather burning on SSSI sites. We will monitor these cases and lobby for flexible guidelines based on local conditions, rather than blanket national prescriptions.

The EU Water Framework Directive will have an impact on moorlands as they are an important element in water collection and carbon sequestration, and there may be pressure for changes in heather management, for instance reversion to scrub woodland. We will closely monitor the research and test any proposals against scientific evidence

Other Key Challenges

Raptors and biodiversity: the conflict between raptors and other birds has the potential to set back biodiversity across large areas of moorland. But the issue is capable of being resolved if a pragmatic approach to achieving a practical balance is taken by Government agencies. We will continue to lobby for this and to this end will collaborate work with all the other stakeholder organisations involved.

Anti-shooting sentiment: the rise of anti-shooting campaigning groups and zealots, and the increasing interference by politicians in the ethics of shooting, is a longer-term threat to the sustainability of moorlands where grouse shooting is a key land-use. We will continue to make the strong argument that grouse management is highly beneficial to moorland biodiversity, with the conclusive scientific proof that exists and is currently being undertaken, and that any chipping away at the ability to run well-managed grouse shooting will be harmful both to the landscape aesthetics and the wildlife diversity of moorlands.