RSPB says birds need less heather, more mixed grazing on hills ONE of Scotland's biggest land managers is making the case for less heather and more mixed grazing on hills and moors to encourage wild birds.
The significance of that backing by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds yesterday - manager of 64,000 hectares of Scotland - is its concern about the Scottish Executive's rural development plans and the future of the less favoured areas (LFAs) support scheme.
About 85 per cent of Scotland is classified as LFA, and the support scheme, part funded by the Executive, part by the European Union, is worth about £60 million a year to farmers and crofters.
The RSPB's fear, and that of most other rural organisations from crofters and tenant farmers to landowners and environmental groups, is that LFA support could be quashed by the European Commission and its auditors later this year.
The commission wonders how 55 per cent of the EU can be classified as less favoured. How could the area claimed to be LFA have increased in recent years? Could member states possibly have found a way to beat - "screw," said one official - the system?
At least Scotland's LFA has stayed constant, at 85 per cent, since the support system was introduced. Even so, a concerted European Commission attempt to curtail LFA support a few years ago was beaten off with difficulty.
Now farmers, landowners, crofters and Ross Finnie, environment and rural development minister, fear another attempt will be made when rural development plans for member states are considered.
Scotland and the UK in general know already they will struggle with a historically based financial allocation for rural development. The UK made the mistake of not applying for much in the past and will suffer now - not helped by the Prime Minister's success at last December's negotiations in reducing the EU rural development budget from 70 billion (£48.5bn) to 50bn, spread over five years.
With various stages of protocol to get through, it will be late autumn at the earliest before the commission makes decisions on LFAs and rural development.
The RSPB's immediate concern is that Executive rural development plans must insist on the importance of LFAs and the importance of keeping cattle on Scotland's hills and moors.
The RSPC says research published yesterday shows that variable vegetation and mixed grazing supports more bird species than other systems. Creating and maintaining this diversity of habitats depends on active management, with livestock grazing playing an important role, said Duncan Orr Ewing, the society's head of species and land management. Maximising heather cover, a long-held conservation objective in the uplands, is unlikely to benefit a wide range of birds.
In recent years, moorland birds such as snipe, golden plover, curlew, skylark and wheatear, have declined in upland areas, with over-grazing of heather by sheep and deer one suggested reason.
But monitoring of 85 moorland sites in southern Scotland and northern England by RSPB researchers indicates that only two of nine characteristic moorland species monitored - red grouse and stonechat - preferred blanket heather cover and that loss of moorland heather in itself does not cause decline.
The RSPB's concern is that the Executive's rural development programme - consultation now ended, submissions being considered - "could result in significant future declines in livestock numbers in these areas".
Common agricultural policy reform, which separated subsidies from production and introduced the single farm payment last year, has made keeping livestock "even more economically unattractive", said Orr Ewing. He went on: "It is crucial that reform of LFA subsidies acknowledges the importance of an extensive mix of livestock, both cattle and sheep, to maintain wildlife habitats in the uplands."
The problem for farmers, crofters and the Executive is that support payments must not be seen as linked in any way to production. That is what the European Commission became twitchy about a few years ago. It still is.
An Executive spokeswoman said yesterday: "Proposals for an interim LFA support scheme for 2007-9 were included in the rural development programme consultation. RSPB formally responded to the consultation and we are aware of their support for the retention of mixed grazing. Ministers will take the final decision on LFASS to achieve a balance of all the interests involved, and proposals will be forwarded to Brussels, where the entire plan will be subject to EU approval." |
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