Sheep are destroying precious British habitats – and we taxpayers are footing the bill | Chris Packham
BThe highlands of Ritain are dying. What should be some of the best places for nature is the absolute worst. In large expanses of some of our most beautiful landscapes, life is quickly refused. Where once there was a life of purple heather, bidbermes and a life of buzzing insects, there are now areas of ecological disaster overvalued and infested with sheep. For a nation of nature lovers, it is a shame.
One of the worst areas is Dartmoor Commons. These illustrate everything that does not go on the management of the highlands of England. In a recent Natural England study on Dartmoor’s protected sites, only 26 out of 22,494 hectares (55,583 acres) proved to be in an ecologically favorable state – 0.1%. All the covered peatlands and all the moors interviewed are in a appalling state, and in many places, these wonderful habitats are declined.
On the high moor of Dartmoor, where there should be a bog with diversified coverage, we see huge areas dominated by a single species – the violet agassus. This rustic plant flourishes in degraded conditions and is a miserable symptom of historical extraction, erosion and drainage of the underlying peat, which was aggravated by excessive burn and pasture all year round in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This moor grass flourishes to the detriment of peat sphangers – healthy. This heritage of intensive agriculture haunts us with the horrible gap of the impenetrable tufts of moor grass until the rambler can walk. Meanwhile, cattle – especially sheep – continues to destroy the little heather moors.
This modern tragedy of the communes is the result of a land which has been pushed far beyond its ecological limits by farmers and commoners who have rights. But it is also a national scandal – because it is the taxpayer, you and I, who pay this destruction.
Here is a hard, unpopular but simple fact: agriculture in this place does not make money. According to a report by the Duchy College Rural Business School in 2023, each sheep put the Dartmoor Commons loses its owner £ 16.90. And there are a lot of sheep. The only way that these losses are maintained is through public subsidies. From the 1970s to the 1990s, farmers and commoners were paid by animal chief – so the more you grazed, the more money you become. A certain sense prevailed in the late 1990s when the first regimes of nature arrived and the public payments were made to reduce figures.
The problem is that the numbers have never been sufficiently reduced; The pasture rates ended up being a non -scientific compromise. For example, on the huge Dartmoor Common forest, the higher level management system allows an average of 0.52 sheep per hectare. In a natural study by England 2020 of 25 years of diagrams in the Lake District, the habitat response was universally good only when the storage rates were less than 0.4 sheep per hectare.
But here is the biggest scandal. Over the past decade, more than 32 million pounds sterling have been paid for Dartmoor commoners thanks to higher level management regimes – regimes that exist specifically to improve nature on sites that should be protected by law. And guess what? No common has improved and many got worse.
The supposed government regulator, Natural England, tried to improve things. In 2023, he was a position, being clear that if he accepted prolonged diets, he should see changes to these storage rates. The backlash of agricultural fraternity was wild, and a politically motivated independent review saw an embarrassing climb. Public funds continue to be wasted and the law is not applied. This is why an organization called Wild Justice has intensified and obtained a judicial examination, which is heard on July 15 and 16. Our wish is that the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council adheres to its legal obligations and acts to reduce storage rates in order to ensure that the habitat is recovered.
It is not even as if this land contributed to food security. Dartmoor grazing is in the least productive 20% of land, which produces less than 3% of foods produced in England. In short, the public supports an industry of the loss of environmental destructive which makes a minimum contribution to the food supply of the country, while damaging the largest asset of Dartmoor: its nature. It’s madness!
We are in a climate and a crisis of nature threatening the planet; We cannot afford not to make positive changes now. We need the new framework for the use of government lands to lend weight to withdraw this mini-productive land from any pretension to significant food production and rather focus on its real potential for essential of nature. Dartmoor -covered peat bogs, for example, are international habitats which, if restored, can store carbon and help regulate water flow, thus reducing the risk of downstream flood. We have to remove the sheep, restore and push the peat bogs, then leave them alone. At the very least, the public should not subsidize sheep on the highlands.
There are also good farmers who want to do more to restore nature. If they put nature first, they deserve public support to restore our highlands with more appropriate animals and more sustainable practices whose local community and our national parks can be proud. Farmers who do not want to change should be penalized for causing damages, not rewarded. Their destructive actions should be as illegal as the jet of waste on protected areas or deliberately fires.
The time for unjust compromises is over. We have to stop paying millions into ecological collapse. Dartmoor and our other highlands fail the sustained ecological systems by wasting the harmful money of taxpayers. If we really care about nature, climate or even budgetary responsibility, we must stop funding for failure and invest in healing: in carbon liaison peat, in a wild and wonderful nature, in healthy landscapes that breathe life. Our highlands need a healthy future, and this future begins with the change – radical, urgent and shameless.
