Rod Liddle, Mark Avery, and a Confrontation With Reality

Times Radio billed my recent appearance with Rod Liddle as “a confrontation with the Moorland Association.” In reality, it became a confrontation with reality.

Rod opened by describing the moor behind his home as “a kind of partially charred moonscape… eerily devoid of life” - before conceding, when presented with the facts, that grouse moors actually hold “five times” as many ground-nesting birds. Moments later, he insisted: “It’s not about curlew, is it?” despite having begun the programme by lamenting their loss.

Mark Avery, who has long called driven grouse shooting “an absurdity,” admitted he would now “be quite happy if driven grouse shooting… disappeared completely, but we could just reform it quite a lot” - underlining Rod’s later observation that Mark can articulate what he sees as the problem, but offers no workable solution.

On hen harriers, I reminded Rod that “Natural England data shows that 80% of English hen harriers are nesting on driven grouse moors” despite them making up only half the habitat. Confronted with this, he alleged that “most of them are killed by gamekeepers.” My reply was simple: “Where’s your evidence for that, Rod?” His answer “There’s been plenty of evidence… from the RSPB” - was met with the fact that these are “unproven, unverified smears from an organisation with an obvious fundraising agenda.”

Finally, on wildlife crime, I pointed out that “using the RSPB’s own data, only 3% of prosecutions for bird crime involve gamekeepers. That means 97% do not.”

For a man who has previously declared, “Every way you look at this industry… its existence is an absurdity,” Rod had surprisingly little to say when confronted with the official data.

You can read the full transcript below or listen to the full exchange here. The piece starts at 2 hours 4 minutes. You will need to create a free account with Times Radio to listen, but this only takes a few seconds.

• Moorland Association CEO Andrew Gilruth also appeared on Hugo Rifkind's Times Radio show on 12th August - listen to the interview here.

Full Transcript

Rod Liddle (host): But now it's the glorious 12th on Tuesday, the date of which a very, very small number of people comparatively trump about outsiders taking shots of the birds and sometimes the beaters. The moors are managed for red grouse and nothing else, creating a certain kind of habitat. I wandered up to one right behind my house on Thursday for a quick survey. But I'm looking out over the one of the many, many managed grouse moors up here in the north. This one about a few hundred yards from where I live. And what do you see when you look out here? You see a kind of partially charred moonscape which is eerily devoid of life. Okay. There are grouse of course, and the occasional meadow pipit and golden plover, but a month ago you might see that curlew, but that's your lot. Actually, a slight correction: what you also have is thousands and thousands of rabbits because the gamekeepers have killed every living creature that can possibly prey on them. Foxes, badgers, stoats, weasels, and of course all the raptors. Many killed illegally. Is it time then for a change to improve diversity of these moors and maybe attract a larger (group) whose leisure pursuits might confine themselves to simply watching wildlife? A little earlier, I spoke to the former boss of the RSPB and veteran conservationist Mark Avery. He told me what the problems were with grouse shooting.

Mark Avery (former RSPB Head of Conservation): People who are worried about grouse shooting, and I'd want to see it disappear completely or for massive reform, fall into three categories really. But they're overlapping. One category of people who just don't like wildlife being shot, and there are about quarter to half a million red grouse shot every year for sport. That's what it is. It's a hobby in the UK. But alongside that, there's all that killing of legal killing of foxes, stoats, carrion crows, anything that competes with the aim of having lots of red grouse to shoot from the glorious 12th, 12th of August, which is when the grouse shooting season opens. That's one area. Another area is conservation value. People like me look at grouse moors and, well, they're good for one or two things. They're good for some ground nesting birds, but clearly the management is directed to producing lots and lots of red grouse because people will pay lots of money. They're not a natural habitat in the UK. You can't go and find anything like ones that we have in Scandinavia or in the Russian steppes or in Canada where incredibly similar species to red grouse live. It's a very UK-based thing and we would have a more natural, and we'd have a wider range of wildlife if we changed or stopped driven grouse shooting. But then on top of that, the burning of heather, which is done to make the uplands kind of almost perfect for red grouse, but it skews everything towards red grouse, has real environmental problems. Those uplands contain more sequestered peat than all the woodlands in the UK put together. And burning the vegetation on top of peat bogs damages the peat bogs, tends to dry out peat, and so we have more greenhouse gas emissions. And we need to, we need to protect those stores of carbon because they are very big and they're part of our kind of national accounting for carbon. Burning also means that flood risk increases, that water companies have to spend more on treating water coming off the hills before it comes into our homes, and those floods are very economically damaging to people and their businesses. So, there's a whole range of reasons why different people point to grouse shooting, which is a pretty niche hobby.

Rod Liddle: Yeah. Grouse shooting is very expensive. If we if we got rid of it, it would be the grouse would be left to themselves and that wouldn't work, would it? You'd end up simply with, you know, carrion crows everywhere. It would-

Mark Avery: (I) told you that you rewilders. You cannot just leave an ecosystem and take away its management completely. Well, it would be a really good idea if we did, often most of the problem environmental problems in the world because we have gone in and riddled about with ecosystems. So, we're talking about the uplands in Britain everywhere. We're talking about red grouse live on the tops of hills where there's lots of heather. It's a hard (place to) make a living doing anything. That's why we've overgrazed it, covered it with conifer plantations in some places, and have this bizarre UK hobby of intensive grouse shooting. If we did leave the uplands, they would store more carbon. They would release fewer floods. We would have a wide range of species living in them. We wouldn't have people going around bumping off birds of prey illegally. So we'd see golden eagles in England and this bird called the hen harrier, which is the one that shooters loathe the most. We'd be able to bring back lynx maybe and certainly kind of like (they're lovely). The idea that you need management usually comes from those people who are going to gain money by doing management. Now, I'd be quite happy if driven grouse shooting, intensive grouse shooting, disappeared completely, but we could just reform it quite a lot, make it less dependent on those big shooting days. But the difficulty we have is that our uplands are driven by the economic desires of the people who own them. The management of them is not driven by the public good.

Rod Liddle: That's the excellent Mark Avery, who was former boss of the RSPB, is a perfect case of nominative determinism, I suppose you could say. But what could we do with our moors? And how might we provide a reward to the land owners for making the scenery a little less like the dark side of the moon? Joining me is Ben MacDonald. You may have one or two answers. Ben, thanks a lot for joining us this morning. What's your answer to this?

Ben MacDonald (Director of Restore): I think the conventional conservation sector in Britain is excellent at pointing out what's wrong, which isn't quite the same as pointing out what could be put in the place of the intensive grouse moors and many of the economic, social, and ecological challenges and the problems that they create, which Mark has touched upon. In my view, we need to begin by thinking about what we would like to see, and then reverse engineer from that basis. And it's very difficult to take the economy out of driving that in a in a capitalist construct in which we live. It's probably a better idea that grouse moors make 10 times more money through ecological restoration and natural capital markets than they make no money. If they make no money, they'll simply default to present practice. But I'll come to that in a minute. In my view, our vision that was told by (a rewilding organization) for restoring grouse moors is very much based upon studying the habitats of comparable countries, and Southern Scandinavia being an obvious example, for the simple reason that we have nothing left in the UK on which to base them. And if you actually read a statement from grouse moor (advocates) it is absolutely as depressing as the current vision: a two-dimensional landscape with heather enshrined for Merlin and hen harriers. It enshrines at every level, government as well as grouse ownership, enshrines this concept of a fundamentally depleted, two-dimensional landscape of peat and heather, which is a substrate, not a habitat. If you if you take away a rainforest, you're left with some lovely peaty soils. Well, that isn't the habitat. That is the habitat that's been left. So, we have two dimensions missing on our on our moorlands. Complex shrubland, the former home of the way back juniper, rowan, dwarf trees, dwarf willows, dwarf birches, bog pines, and of course on many of our steeper sides, whether in the Pennines or the Dales, Atlantic rainforest and and canopy mature, mature woodland. And between all of those habitats they would create, as they did in the past, a very complex mosaic for many of our species. But I fundamentally disagree about leaving. You can only leave an ecosystem that's intact. If an ecosystem's highly degraded, you believe that it can actually get considerably worse. I spent a lot of time this year and last year in eastern Poland and in Eastern Hungary where the density of mesopredators, particularly crows and foxes, is extremely low. The landscape doesn't allow for the proliferation of these mid-level predators because there are eagles, eagle owls, wolves, and lynx. So, because we don't have those animals at the moment, we'll need at least 20 years of management before we can reach that really operational stage where ecosystems can entirely recover by themselves. A lot of-

Rod Liddle: If we do that, so sorry just to break into that, if we do that, well how do we monetize it? So, you can have a go at the grouse shooters and so on, but they do bring in income. How do we bring in income to that to that landscape whilst having it more diverse and perhaps restored to what it would have been as its natural state?

Ben MacDonald: It's an excellent point. I actually strangely don't spend any of my time having a go at these landowners. I sit down with them and present (them) with an infinitely more compelling economic model which of course has very strong social and ecological benefits. So rewilding, in inverted commas, or a full spectrum ambitious ecological restoration handled well, now makes approximately £2,000 per acre per year. And many of these schemes you can lock in for 30 years. So the economics of ecological restoration are hands down considerably better than the economics of grouse shooting. There is an alternative here that allows landowners to make money and whilst we may land (base) landowners making money, at the end of the day we do need to be employing rural people. We do need people keeping an eye on our land for all sorts of reasons ranging from-

Ben MacDonald: Standby with you. Species reintroductions, the act of putting back a beaver, a crane, a golden eagle, of these I want to see reintroduced to to our grouse landscapes, is actually quite expensive and and quite heavy on human capital. So the more money that flows into these landscapes the better. But it needs to do-

Rod Liddle: It would bring in, it would bring in lots of people, would it not?

Ben MacDonald: It can do. It can do. I think I have seen both the good and the bad side of what you might call ecotourism. If you look at a species like the capercaillie, I'm increasingly convinced we need what almost every other country has. There's a range of strict reserves, which are a very nice way of saying to humans mostly bugger off. This is where nature lives. We already have pretty good dominion of the planet. But I do believe that ecotourism, or nature-based tourism as I prefer to call it, is is a powerful driver in these areas. We know for example that dolphin watch on the Isle of Mull alone brings in more overnight stays and more money to the local economy than all of the grouse shooting in England. So we know from the economics of the white-tailed eagles on Mull how powerful the return of these larger animals can be. And we know that lynx, if restored to Northumberland, will bring 50 to 60 million to the local economy. So there are powerful alternatives here and we are an organization driven by ecological aspiration but we very much harness the power of natural capital markets to create offerings that are 10 times more economically appealing than the grouse shoots of people still.

Rod Liddle: Thanks a lot, Ben. That that's absolutely fascinating. The Moorland Association represents the owners of more than 1 million acres of grouse and its boss is Andrew Gilruth. And I'm delighted to say he's with me now. Andrew, there's an alternative for you. You could be making more money if you invested a little bit in the ecological change.

Andrew Gilruth (Moorland Association CEO): Yeah. And I and I and I welcome that. And I also welcome Ben's point that Mark could only highlight what's wrong and Ben talked about what could happen, but in reality let's deal with where we are and actually driven grouse moors are the moors which are delivering the results. So multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies show an extraordinary number of red-listed curlew and lapwing on our moors and the other, if you like, the other approaches which people are advocating, they don't produce the same level of results. So-

Rod Liddle: Well, they do, don't they? I mean, the hen harrier (is) red-listed as well, and by and large the gamekeepers kill them even though they're not supposed to. And you-

Andrew Gilruth: Well, no. If you let's let's talk about, no, let's talk about hen harriers. So you you you're (absolutely wrong) when you're you're saying that. So Natural England data shows that 80% of English hen harriers are nesting on driven grouse moors despite the fact they only represent 50% of the available habitat. So, and they're now-

Rod Liddle: The stat, hang on. You'll also find out the statistics show that of of the hen harriers which are illegally killed, most of them are killed by gamekeepers.

Andrew Gilruth: Well, you're that's what you're saying. But where's your evidence for that, Rod?

Rod Liddle: Well, there's (plenty of evidence). There's been plenty of evidence done by raptor associations, by the RSPB, by wildlife councils and so on. Loads of evidence for it.

Andrew Gilruth: No, those. So you're using, you're using the RSPB. So that's (unproven, unverified smears) from an organization with an obvious fundraising agenda. What we should do is go back to Natural England data and they are saying that 80% of hen harriers, there's red-listed species, are nesting on driven grouse moors. They're not nesting elsewhere.

Rod Liddle: Shot by game-

Andrew Gilruth: And well, you, but these are unverified smears that you're coming up with.

Rod Liddle: So it doesn't happen. It actually doesn't happen.

Andrew Gilruth: Well, there are bad apples that, well, there are bad apples in every profession. I mean, for instance, sometimes the BBC has to, you know, (Today program editors) when they go off the rails, you know that happens.

Rod Liddle: Oh, sorry. Well, asked to leave. So, but you know that-

Andrew Gilruth: Okay, but then we've got we got to deal we've got to deal with that, and that hen harriers are now at a 200-year high, but let's use the official data, not unproven unverified smears from organizations with fundraising agendas.

Rod Liddle: They they would, people beg to differ with you about what is the official data. I mean, they just would.

Andrew Gilruth: But no, I'm sorry. (I don't accept that). So let's look at the prosecution figures, shall we? So, using RSPB data, you go through all their reports. So if you go through those and you go go back say, go back and look at last year, there were convictions for people stealing eggs. There were convictions for people from falconers taking birds, but there wasn't a single gamekeeper. So, and if you go and look at the prosecution figures and using RSPB data, only 3% of prosecutions were for bird crime, were against gamekeepers, and that means that 97% were not. So, it is now is the time to stop the smears and start using real evidence.

Rod Liddle: Well, I would argue that the evidence which comes from a wealth of campaigning organizations is equally valid to those which you prefer. But-

Andrew Gilruth: Well, I'd go with the police. Natural England of course is one of the main points is the is the moonscape of these areas, this charred moonscape which is largely devoid of life and could be full of life and there are ways of dealing with that which you could do, which your landowners could do-

Rod Liddle: Well, you call it a charred, you know, landscape and that's, there's a sort of (outrageous slur). I mean, the these-

Andrew Gilruth: We burn the heather. That's why it's charred.

Andrew Gilruth: But the but our moors have been have burnt regularly for the last 6,000 years. This is, you know, long before the invention of the shotgun. So, and we know that from the peat records. It's part of fire is part of this landscape. So, just pointing at a single patch of ground which may be burnt say every 20 years is is actually is managing to sustain huge amounts of wildlife. And actually, in places where it has, where they've ended that that burning and ended the management. You then see the decline in the bird species which is the bit at the opening segment but you said that you wanted to see. So you know there are plenty of places that we can study and Ben was alluding to them, but there are plenty of places that we can go back and say, okay, so the management did change away from driven grouse shooting and then what happened as a result. So if you go to the Berwyn Special Protection Area where the management ceased and the driven grouse shooting ended then the curlew numbers dropped by, I'm just looking up the numbers this morning, dropped by 79%, golden plover by 90%, black grouse by 78%, ring ouzels by the same number. So we know what happens when you take the gamekeepers off the hill. We also know what happens, you know, for example, if a national park takes it over. So the Peak District National Park took on the Walls Low Estate and I looked up their numbers this morning. They purchased that in 1985 and since that then the curlew numbers have gone down 93%.

Rod Liddle: It's not about curlew, is it?

Andrew Gilruth: At the opening segment you said it was, you said you wanted to see the birds and from a government perspective it is-

Rod Liddle: (It's a) bird.

Andrew Gilruth: Well nature's in crisis. We should be looking.

Rod Liddle: Sorry. We have to stop there because we we've got to hear from America. Good luck on the 12th. Thank you for talking to me.

Andrew Gilruth: You're very welcome.