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When I lived in the city I remember this as a small treasure hidden deep in the schedules, made by country folk for country folk, and as such of little interest to me. Sometimes I’d pass by and a Jack Hargreaves type would be drowning badgers or skinning otters or some other quaint rural practice, and I’d move on glad that backwater people had a backwater programme.
As soon as I move to the country myself the BBC decide to upgrade Countryfile. And change it entirely. It used to be about the county, by the the country, for the country. Now it seems to be about the country, by the city, for the city.
Presumably as a sop, John Craven is still allowed to mooch around, having “heated debates” about organic fox-hunting and the like, but now it’s all younger urban types quad-biking from one abseil to the next great caving experience. These city media twats treat the countryside like a giant theme park where they park and go from one quick ersatz taste of husky-racing to their next big bareback adventure.
Tossers.
Down To Earth with Bob Smithies
nowadays it certainly ain’t. One of two not overly welcome format changes in recent months, along with the less info-, more tainment-flavoured
Watchdog
. Harrumph.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Big grey grain silos, motocross, racism, pubs full of vinnie jones wannabes, witchcraft, dodgy looking kids with big ears…
Big grey grain silos, motocross, racism, pubs full of vinnie jones wannabes, witchcraft, dodgy looking kids with big ears…
But enough about the city……
SILENCE broken only by bird song, the rustle of leaves and the occasional gunshot
Yes, enough about subarban city life on a sunday morning.
Given that Nothumbrian fox hunting crowd have lives that make Jilly Cooper novels look very tame, I would suggest our country living friends had best cease too throw stones..
Dont get me started on so called country people with dogs, people have not heard of the concept of keeping their dogs on lead or close too them so as not too harass livestock, the dog laws are for everyone regardless of where you live thickos. That and breeding terriers that are the most dangerous type of dog you can get. Why own a dog that can easily get into earthworks when you live the countryside as well as having foul tempers. Idiot townies with staffies, why own one? They need acres of exercise and can be very destructive if they dont get enough, folk dont look hard, they just look silly with their staffy called tyson.
I have insulted both townies and country people..
Wise words indeed from Charlie in The Daily Telegraph:-
The British countryside is about to undergo a major transformation, with tens of thousands of hectares being set aside to enable birds and wildlife to thrive. There’s just one problem – it probably won’t work.
Recently, rural organisations including the National Farmers’ Union and the Country Land & Business Association came together to set up the Campaign for the Farmed Environment, which has now attracted government support. Farmers have been told by their leaders that they have to set more land aside – the initial target is 70,000 hectares – to create habitats beneficial for birds and wildlife,
or else.The scheme is notionally optional, and provides a welcome opportunity for our food producers to show they can step up to the mark and address environmental issues. However, Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, has made it clear that, in the unlikely event that he still wields power in the future, he will not hesitate to plaster red tape over those farmers who don’t acquiesce.
But there is one massive flaw in the plan, according to leading ecologists. Unless the creation of wildlife-friendly habitats is combined with rigorous predator and vermin control, the public money spent on this might as well be used to buy more duck houses.
The problem is that in our partially informed, politically correct age, we refuse to control the population size of certain species that are counterproductive to biodiversity, despite insurmountable evidence.
For the past 20 years, farmers have been putting land aside from agriculture, under European direction. And during that period, the number of farmland birds has halved, with some species, such as lapwings, losing 80 per cent or more of their population.
The explanation is not that there has been a corresponding decline in suitable habitats. It is that, during the past hundred years, the populations of magpies, crows, rooks and jackdaws have been allowed to explode.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has firsthand experience of the consequences of not managing the environment. A couple of years ago, when bird numbers on its Geltsdale Moor in Cumbria were compared with those in 17 similar habitats, it was found that it had the lowest lapwing density, and very poor numbers of golden plovers, curlew and black grouse. Not surprisingly, it also had the highest carrion crow population. Yet getting the RSPB to admit that certain birds need to be shot for the sake of others is as hard as getting them to tell the nice old ladies who leave them money that cats eat 55 million birds a year.
Studies of waders and grey partridge by the Game and Wildlife Trust proved that even if the conditions of a habitat are perfect, bird numbers are seriously reduced by foxes and other vermin. And while no trials have been published since badgers became protected, there is every reason to believe that their increasing population will find that the eggs of ground-nesting birds make a delicious breakfast.
This is part of a wider problem: too often, we take the bunny-hugging approach to conservation. We try to make nice homes for red squirrels when we should be killing vast numbers of greys. Whether we like it or not, we manage and control the balance of nature. And sometimes that involves taking tough decisions.
The Campaign for the Farmed Environment is a good move, and it probably pre-empts what Europe will make farmers do to receive subsidies post-2013. But a prescription based only on filling the map with different shades of green is wrong. The scheme must be designed to reward farmers for successfully increasing wildlife populations – which means managing hostile species in the way they know best.
Can i also suggest a cull of farmers and one issue countryside alliance bores?
The first would save huge subsidies and the second would make the countryside worth visiting again
I’m not usually a fan of Charlie Brooks but I think he hits the nail on the head here. I’m in total agreement.
What Brooks isnt addressing is why there is such an imbalance in the first place. Perhaps 40 years of intensive factory farming where hedgerows and woodland were uprooted and ponds filled in, then the resulting enormous fields being sprayed with pesticide and chemical fertiliser have something to do with it.
With the encouragement and subsidy of past governments, farmers laid waste to the British countryside destroying habitats and an ecosystem that had been in place for centuries in the process. Their answer to all natures ills seems to be to pick certain species to carry out wide ranging culls on and see if that helps right the wrongs of their forbears.
All the bird species that Brooks lists are classed as vermin anyway so there is no legal obstacle to farmers shooting as many as they like as long as they have permission from the landowner and a firearms licence, not even that if they use an air rifle. If they care so much about the lapwing population and think that the large crow population is causing their decline no-one is stopping them doing something about it. If anyone has allowed the population of vermin to explode it’s farmers as they have the opportunity to shoot these birds but for whatever reason don’t.
The only instance where I would agree there is an argument for a mass cull is where non-native species have been introduced, Grey Squirrels being a prime candidate. Otherwise in general if left alone nature will regulate itself.
As you rightly say intensive farming and the gross over-use of unselective pesticides – many of which are now banned – in the decades since WW2 has been responsible for the ‘imbalance’ we now have.The burgeoning populations of what are pejoratively known as vermin is due to these being opportunistic, unspecialised species capable of easy adaption to a changed ecosystem: crows and the other corvids, rats, rabbits, woodpigeons, foxes, squirrels.
Of course a rapid return to the ‘natural ecosystem’ instigated by set-aside etc will see some species flourish at the expense of others until it all settles down and the natural order is restored by mother nature…over time.
Rabbits too are not native to this country, having been introduced by the Romans and I’d agree that interference by us in the shape of killing as many bunnies (and grey squirrels) as possible would be justified.
Introduced species both animal and plant are invariably bad news for the native species
There may be too many crows and foxes so feel free to shoot as many as you like Farmer Giles, it won’t make a blind bit of difference; they aren’t the cause of the current mess, you are
Farmers ‘custodians of the countryside’ my ar*se
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