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Hen Harrier "quota" a win-win solution say researchers (1 Viewer)

bitterntwisted said:
Talking of ill-informed ignorance, in my attempt to tease Allen about living in an intolerant, illiberal backwater, I've managed to out myself despite not actually being gay.

For the record, the Isle of Man now has the same equality laws as the UK, and welcomes visitors of any sexuality.

Apologies for my ignorant teasing, Allen, the Isle of Man does sound a cracking place to visit.

Graham
Citizen of the World
Click to expand...

OK, bitterntwisted, your attempt to tease failed as I didn't notice that's what you were doing! Ignorance is bliss, eh? Of course, living in a place exposes its faults, and there are some. Birching was banned decades ago, which will undoubtedly disappoint that Norton fellow in his strange downer on the Isle of Man, or is it just a downer on me - I've never met you, mate! Talking about "living in an intolerant, illiberal backwater," there are people in England with that mind set. Just look at the toffs who expect the peasants to adhere to the law and yet break it themselves by shooting protected birds.

I'm not ignoring what KN wrote about constitutional matters. Those the are results of history, it not being easy for a small country to remain 100% independent while living close to a larger neighbour, with or without expansionist tendencies. The Isle of Man has its own parliament (and, yes, our laws have to be accepted by the UK, history!), taxation and laws. One manifestation of our partial independence is that we are only associate members of the EU. We Manx are Celts, not Germanic, and have our own Celtic language. Yes, the English language is almost universal here, as it is in many other countries on the world. The Manx and other lesser used languages are manifestations of human diversity, in the same way that we ornithologists speak about biodiversity. Indeed, areas with high linguistic diversity often also have high biodiversity, like New Guinea and equatorial west Africa.

Talking about independence, the UK is not as independent as it was thanks to its membership of the EU. That independence would have been further reduced as a result of the Lisbon Treaty, but who stood up to it and kicked it out? Our Celtic neighbours in the Irish Republic!

One last message to Mr Norton ... you need to chill. Can I recommend a holiday in the Isle of Man?

Allen Moore
 
Steve G said:
Your nostalgia for this outdated land management system is very touching but this is the 21st century & people want to see changes in land use. Furthermore setting fire to large parts of the countryside is no longer acceptable in our carbon-conscious times.
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and your nostalgia for the mythical Caledonian forest tickles my soul. Except that nobody knows what it actually looked like (forest cover or groves, closed canopy or savanna), and much of the deforestation of Scotland is actually thought to be natural and climatic, not man-made.

Of course, we must give people what they want, so let's see some new thinking on Abernethy, shall we, and get a bit of change going there. It's been the same for ages now. And those dunes that Trump wants - people want to see land use change there aswell, don't they.

I trust that you'll be stopping natural burns in Yellowstone, Africa and Australia too, in these carbon conscious times, although it may be tricky for all those fire-adapted specied to change. Oh, hang on, you do realise that Scots Pine and Heather are fire-adapted species, don't you? And that fire is necessary for their ecology?
 
Allen S. Moore said:
We Manx are Celts, not Germanic, and have our own Celtic language.
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racist drivel, my friend. There is actually no accepted definition of 'celt', it's a made up catch-all word from the Victorian period to describe a supposed tribe, but is essentially no different from anyone else in the British Isles. http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
You might as well say "we Liverpudlians are Scouse, not Brummies, and have our own Scouse accent" for all the worth it carries in distinguishing you from I. There may have been a 'Celtic' language (which nobody now speaks) on IoM, but unless you can trace your family tree back to about 150AD then you're in the same boat as the rest of us, pal. The 'Celtic' myth is second only to the Aryian in self-righteous pseudo-scientific separatism.

One wonders how you'd view a black geezer, born and bred in Douglas, who described himself as Manx....not even the wood mice are genetically distinct on IoM, and they never had boats and planes and a trading tradition.
 
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KnockerNorton said:
and your nostalgia for the mythical Caledonian forest tickles my soul. Except that nobody knows what it actually looked like (forest cover or groves, closed canopy or savanna), and much of the deforestation of Scotland is actually thought to be natural and climatic, not man-made.

Of course, we must give people what they want, so let's see some new thinking on Abernethy, shall we, and get a bit of change going there. It's been the same for ages now. And those dunes that Trump wants - people want to see land use change there aswell, don't they.

I trust that you'll be stopping natural burns in Yellowstone, Africa and Australia too, in these carbon conscious times, although it may be tricky for all those fire-adapted specied to change. Oh, hang on, you do realise that Scots Pine and Heather are fire-adapted species, don't you? And that fire is necessary for their ecology?
Click to expand...

I love your approach ->reflect on a comment then link an outrageous concept or complete hyperbole to it, attribute the whole package to the author of the original comment then tear the whole thing to shreds........ wicked!! :t:


Yeah Scots Pine is clearly adapted to being torched by a gallon of unleaded & a box of Swan Vesta annually!

Yeah neolithic man had hee-haw to do with the decline of UK forest cover.

Yeah global slash & burn promotes biodiversity.
 
Steve G said:
Yeah Scots Pine is clearly adapted to being torched by a gallon of unleaded & a box of Swan Vesta annually!
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most pines are fire-adapted - that's why they have thick peeling bark and the leaf litter is full of resin - to promote fire. Fire eradicates their competitors, and the pines can dominate. Did you do biology at school?

Steve G said:
Yeah neolithic man had hee-haw to do with the decline of UK forest cover.
Click to expand...

I never said he didn't, but the basic fact is that we do not know what the original forest cover looked like - it could have looked like Richmond Park or Kielder Forest. And there is substantial evidence that climatic factors were primarily responsible for deforestation in upland and western Scotland in the past few thousand years. Read a few books by TC Smout, the authority on Scottish forests.

Steve G said:
Yeah global slash & burn promotes biodiversity.
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and you accuse me of outrageous concepts and hyperbole?! But go back to your biology schoolbook and read about fire-adapted species and ecosystems. Why do you think heather keeps growing back after burning every few years?!
 
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KnockerNorton said:
That's the same argument vegetarians use about eating meat, factory farming and abbatoirs. We all know what battery farms, slaughter and eating meat involves, but Tesco still does a roaring trade in pork chops and cheap chicken.....
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I'm not entirely sure where the connection between killing things for fun and battery farms is coming from but doubtless you'll enlighten us.
 
Isurus said:
I do think some of the attitudes on this thread are a little counterproductive. I can see people being against the quota scheme suggestion but I'm surprised at the number who apparently want to do away with grouse moors altogether.
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Depends what you mean by grouse moors. If you mean heather moorland that is managed specifically to produce artificially high numbers of Red Grouse that can then be shot at, then yep - abolish the lot by all means.

If you mean heather moorland that is managed to promote biodiversity, carbon storage, landscape character, sustainable recreation space, and a range of other public goods then no - we need all we can get.

The snag is that there is no obvious mechanism to provide this economically and therein lies the dilemma.|:S|
 
John B (not the sloop) said:
The snag is that there is no obvious mechanism to provide this economically and therein lies the dilemma.|:S|
Click to expand...
Agreed but there seems to be a perspective that a) isn't as good as b) but we can't have b) and we don't like the people who maintain a) so lets turn it all into a big sheep farm.
 
Reading more about grouse shooting I realise I may have got rather confused indeed between that and pheasant shooting in terms of the size of the bag and the desire for bigger and better bags. So, having talked out of my hat, I shall now proceed to eat it!

However, the rest of my argument still stands, and I would still be interested to know, KnockerNorton, about specifically the level of gamekeeping and burning on the Utilities moors. Obviously, my conclusions are based on personal experience, but I can find nothing to contradict my impressions elsewhere.

One interesting point I thought up at the weekend was: if conservation is usually aimed at the reversal of human influences, where does this lead moorland? i.e. what would be the natural frequency of fire damage?
 
Steve G said:
What is this vital moor management alluded to above?

-It's moor burning & very little else (apart from shooting Hook-beaks!)! OK it stops the natural progression of vegetation, i.e heather moor progressing to birch scrub or open pine forest but the bloody sheep & deer are doing that anyway. Moor burning by its very nature reduces biodiversity; it also releases large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere (much of it from the peat substrate underlying the heather).


No, grouse moors are not upland nature reserves which protect iconic, diverse & distinct wildlife threatened or absent from elsewhere in Europe; they are monotonous monocultures bereft of biodiversity which exist to satisfy the bloodlust of a relatively small minority!
Click to expand...

Too true...seems odd that a fire on a lowland heath is a disaster for biodiversity yet a fire on an upland heath has the exact opposite effect.
 
ikw101 said:
Too true...seems odd that a fire on a lowland heath is a disaster for biodiversity yet a fire on an upland heath has the exact opposite effect.
Click to expand...

In the long term things of things though, I would question if it is a disaster for lowland heaths - unless managed or subject to burning at periodic intervals, the heath would simply cease to exist. Dartford Warblers, Sand Lizards and the specialist plants would be none too numerous in the resultant end of the progression woodland.
 
KnockerNorton said:
racist drivel, my friend. There is actually no accepted definition of 'celt', it's a made up catch-all word from the Victorian period to describe a supposed tribe, but is essentially no different from anyone else in the British Isles. http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
You might as well say "we Liverpudlians are Scouse, not Brummies, and have our own Scouse accent" for all the worth it carries in distinguishing you from I. There may have been a 'Celtic' language (which nobody now speaks) on IoM, but unless you can trace your family tree back to about 150AD then you're in the same boat as the rest of us, pal. The 'Celtic' myth is second only to the Aryian in self-righteous pseudo-scientific separatism.

One wonders how you'd view a black geezer, born and bred in Douglas, who described himself as Manx....not even the wood mice are genetically distinct on IoM, and they never had boats and planes and a trading tradition.
Click to expand...

Curious that you should bring racism into this. I was thinking that you would be able to further add to our knowledge by telling if the BNP has a policy on wildlife conservation.

For the record, the term "Celtic" is defined as a country (in the way that we use it, if not everyone) which has an existing Celtic language, Manx sitting in that category. Yes, quite a few of us speak Manx, people of all age groups. We all speak English, too, but there's no harm in bi- or multi-lingualism, is there? Indeed, when I moved on to try to learn some other western European languages, knowing Manx helped.

One of the joys of the BirdForum, in my mind, is its internationalism, people from all over the world can take part. It is really no big deal if people sometimes use words in a different way from others.

Allen

Here's another simple test, is there a MP for the Isle of Man in Westminister?
 
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Jos Stratford said:
In the long term things of things though, I would question if it is a disaster for lowland heaths - unless managed or subject to burning at periodic intervals, the heath would simply cease to exist. Dartford Warblers, Sand Lizards and the specialist plants would be none too numerous in the resultant end of the progression woodland.
Click to expand...

depends on how big the heath fragment is (most lowland heaths are fragments and therefore tend to burn in totality, not little bits at a time), and when the fire is (summer is obviously bad for a fragment with vulnerable rare breeding species that are restricted to that fragment). Under natural conditions it would be occasional lightning strikes on extensive heaths, where it would burn itself out quite quickly due to limited fuel. But now all lowland heaths are highly fragmented and also haven't been burnt for a long while, so there is a lot of fuel and the potential for soil damage/peat catching light. So you can end up burning an entire small heath as opposed to bits of a large heath.
 
KnockerNorton said:
depends on how big the heath fragment is (most lowland heaths are fragments and therefore tend to burn in totality, not little bits at a time), and when the fire is (summer is obviously bad for a fragment with vulnerable rare breeding species that are restricted to that fragment). Under natural conditions it would be occasional lightning strikes on extensive heaths, where it would burn itself out quite quickly due to limited fuel. But now all lowland heaths are highly fragmented and also haven't been burnt for a long while, so there is a lot of fuel and the potential for soil damage/peat catching light. So you can end up burning an entire small heath as opposed to bits of a large heath.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I was told while volunteering at Minsmere that the heath there and at Dunwich was managed partly by burning, controlled by fire breaks and with a rotational system, and partly by manual cutting of successional species and Gorse/Bracken etc. Clearly the management there and elsewhere proves that lowland heaths can also be managed with care.

Jan
 
Beds_Birder said:
I'm pretty sure I was told while volunteering at Minsmere that the heath there and at Dunwich was managed partly by burning, controlled by fire breaks and with a rotational system, and partly by manual cutting of successional species and Gorse/Bracken etc. Clearly the management there and elsewhere proves that lowland heaths can also be managed with care.

Jan
Click to expand...

yeah, disasters happen when some dunce with a BBQ sets fire in summer, and you get uncontrolled burning. Because of the fragmentation, fire has to be carefully controlled now to get the mosaic rather than the total scorched earth result. It's gardening really, but it still works.
 
KnockerNorton said:
the consistent meaning of words between speakers tends to be crucial in communication.
Click to expand...

"When I use the word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, " whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be the master – that’s all."​

Carroll, L. (1871) 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'
 
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