Good season predicted on grouse moors

Millions of pounds worth of privately-funded improvements on heather moorlands have brought hundreds of permanent jobs in the countryside and thousands of days of extra employment in Yorkshire and elsewhere during the grouse shooting season.

This is what the Moorland Association has achieved during its 25 years of existence.

Its anniversary report today says association members have spent 30m over the past decade alone on the parts of the upland heather moors which they manage in northern England.

"The heather is rarer than rainforest – 75 per cent of it is found in this country and we need to preserve it," says Edward Bromet, president of the Moorland Association. "It has this wonderful benefit of generating grouse numbers which can be shot which means it brings tremendous economic advantages to the uplands."

But he fears the latest government cuts may affect the environmental schemes which pour millions of pounds of public money into the uplands. The worry that the cash for wildlife-friendly land management, especially Higher Level Stewardship schemes, may be cut is shared by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The RSPB says that good quality moorland is important, not just for wildlife but also for water quality and carbon storage.

The Moorland Association survey indicates that many moors actually lose money. According to their figures, the average return for letting out shooting days is 13 per cent of what the owners spend on maintaining the estates.

On about 40 per cent of estates there is no shooting during the season, often because grouse numbers are too low.

As well as managing the grazing, those in charge of the moors put down heather seeds – 26 square miles in total the past decade. They build or maintain dry stone walls and fencing – 257 miles over that time-span, the equivalent of the distance from London to Penzance. A zero-tolerance policy towards bracken has resulted in 65 square miles of it being treated to stop the bracken swamping and killing other moorland plants. This has helped bring back heather to an area of moorland the size of Birmingham

Some 400,000 acres of grouse moor has been lost since the Second World

War and 800,000 acres remain. Edward Bromet, a Leeds solicitor and

one of the owners of Bingley, Burley and Hawksworth Moors high up above Airedale, says he's determined to increase this.

"Although we have recovered an enormous amount, there's still a great deal to go and there's no reason, with the right government, incentives, why that should not happen."

He feels the new coalition at Westminster may be more sympathetic to grouse moor managers and he sees a sign of that in the appointment of Jim Paice, Minister of State for Agriculture at the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, as the Minister with responsibility for shooting.

"They understand the benefits, it is now a great relief that we have Ministers that even eat meat. At last I think we have some sense in terms of the way that the uplands need to be managed, and that managers need to manage their own land and not be burdened by government."

He takes a fairly radical line over the future role that government agencies should play in private moor management. "We have put quite firmly to the coalition Government that Natural England should be heavily reduced. We survived perfectly well before they were formed and we can do so again. Their involvement in detail is much more than

is necessary."

How moor owners and managers relate to voluntary conservation bodies presents another challenge. The RSPB is worried that in their desire to protect grouse chicks, some moor managers regard birds of prey as part of the problem.

There is a suspicion that some keepers illegally kill birds such as hen harriers. The RSPB is also opposed to these birds being culled under licence or moved from grouse moors.

Edward Bromet points out that the management of predator animals like crows, stoats and foxes is legal and is a major part of the work carried out by keepers. That control does not extend to birds of prey.

"The persecution of raptors is illegal. One of the points that this survey shows is that on the grouse moors we are harbouring far more numbers of raptors than anyone necessarily believes. We don't support anyone who takes the law into their own hands."

The Moorland Association's survey reveals that across England, the grouse moors provide 350 jobs for keepers, and more than 40,000 days of employment for casual staff who help on shoot days as well as for contractors who are brought in to carry out work on the moors. Edward Bromet says this employment has risen by a quarter in the past 10 years.

The economic boost which the management of an upland for grouse shooting delivers to the local economy is acknowledged by the Country Land and Business Association. "Shooting is a vibrant and growing sport in Yorkshire and the environmental, economic and social benefits have long been recognised," says Dorothy Fairburn, the CLA Yorkshire regional director.

"Shooting is worth in excess of 100m a year to Yorkshire's economy, helping to combat rural poverty and underpin the social fabric of the countryside."

There is optimism about the prospects for this upcoming season.

The grouse is by definition an arctic bird and a very cold winter followed by a dry spring has been good news for the birds as they nest. Edward Bromet says it's looking good on the highest moors and is even better on those slightly lower.

"Some moors are reporting some of their best hatches ever in terms of the numbers of each hatch."

CW 7/8/10