Introduction
Sporting shooting could not exist without conservation because, if there were no conservation, there would be nothing to shoot. And in preserving habitat for game we benefit a host of other wildlife. Woodland thinned for pheasants, for instance, can contain four times more species of butterfly and ten times as many individual butterflies as unmanaged areas.
In the 21st century the necessity to manage our natural resources becomes ever more pressing. Since Neolithic farmers began to shape the landscape 6,000 years ago man’s influence has come to dominate the countryside and even the wildest places are, in essence, a man-made environment. That places a huge responsibility on those who control the countryside. This is not just a UK problem. Increased farming pressure and associated loss of wildlife, or biodiversity, as it is more often known, is happening around the globe.
In response to these global losses, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was agreed in 1992 at the United Nations’ Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro – usually known as the Earth Summit.
The UK was one of 150 countries signing the convention, committing them to provide a plan for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Consequently the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) was produced in 1994 and it is this which sets targets for the conservation and sustainable use of the UK’s threatened wildlife.
Since 1994 it has become increasingly clear that conservationists must think on the large scale. Isolated nature reserves, offering little pools of shelter, are not the answer; the two key concepts are ‘landscape scale’ and ‘connectivity.’
In essence this means conserving habitat over a wide area where the individual woods or other features are linked by wildlife corridors such as hedgerows or overgrown streams. This approach has become increasingly important to provide wildlife with the flexibility it requires to adapt to climate change. Shooting is one of the few activities which directly influences land management on this scale; it therefore has a crucial role in helping the UK achieve its internationally-agreed conservation targets.
Shooters now find themselves in a unique situation because of the management they do. With increasing financial and institutional pressure on farmers to manage their land for enhanced biodiversity, shooting offers exceptional opportunities. By improving habitat landowners can simultaneously increase their income from shooting rents and reap the financial benefits of environmental stewardship schemes.
With over two thirds of the rural land area shot over, and shooting spending over £250 million on conservation each year, shooting sports are key partners for biodiversity conservation. At the heart of this is the BASC Green Shoots programme – a biodiversity action plan for shooting launched in 2000 ‘to recognise, build upon and co-ordinate the shooting community’s considerable contribution to wildlife and biodiversity conservation’.
Since its launch Green Shoots has demonstrated how the shooting community can enhance biodiversity on privately held land where the statutory conservation agencies and non-governmental organisations face their greatest challenge in accessing and influencing management for biodiversity. It is fair to say that without this active participation of the shooting community the UK is unlikely to achieve the conservation targets to which the government is committed. Shooters spend 2.7 million work days on conservation – the equivalent of 12,000 full-time jobs.
However, these projects are not run in isolation. BASC believes in working with others, and all our projects benefit from strong partnerships with the public, private and voluntary sectors.
It is against this background that shooters have to carry out their conservation work, and it is crucial for the future of shooting sports that those who shoot have a basic knowledge of issues relating to the countryside and its wildlife.
Geology and topography
The rocks that make up the United Kingdom not only create our landscape but they also influence the soils and with that the plants and animals that will exist there. Within the United Kingdom you will find nearly all the rock types and landscape features found in much larger countries. Our mountains may not be the highest and our rivers are not the longest, but it is difficult to travel many miles without crossing a geological boundary and with it a change in landscape. The gently rolling lowland areas with their hidden rocks produce landscapes including chalk downland, arable plains, the once-wet fenland areas of Cambridgeshire and sandy heaths like those in Dorset or the Breckland of Norfolk. These areas contrast with the rugged, glacier-gouged rocks of western Scotland and Snowdonia. The plants and animals that can be found on different rocks and soils are also influenced by temperature. Temperature generally drops the further north you go or the higher you go.
Conservation concepts
Conservation does not mean neglect. Some people see conservation as leaving nature to look after itself; this is not the case and will inevitably lead to a change in how the site looks and its value for wildlife. Conservation on a shoot involves making choices. There will always be limits to what can be done, driven by cost, practicality and personal interest. The first stage is to draw up a plan.
Flight ponds are havens for wildlife
Habitat
Habitat is the environment that supplies everything wildlife needs to sustain healthy populations. Different wildlife species require particular habitats. Habitats are classified into broadly distinctive types according to their location, flora and fauna, physical characteristics and geology, i.e. lowland deciduous woodland or heathland. Each habitat type provides the food, cover, water and space for the wildlife living there.
Conservation plan
Identify which are the most important habitats on the shoot. Are any of the habitats important at the national, regional or local level? Recognise habitats that cannot be influenced – arable fields, grass leys. Identify key boundaries which might act as corridors for wildlife. Write a plan to cover management of all appropriate habitats.
Habitat management
The foundation stone of wildlife management is the provision of suitable habitats. In the UK man has changed the face of nature through agriculture and hunting for thousands of years so that much of the wildlife we enjoy today is a result of man’s intervention.
Aspects of the habitat that can be managed are the availability of food and water and the provision of cover or open spaces. Countryside which provides a mixture of habitats is clearly desirable since it can support a greater variety of species. It is also important to bear in mind that each wildlife species occupies a unique place in the environment. If a particular habitat changes in character or is altered by management some species may do well and others decline. Inappropriate management of a woodland habitat for pheasants or ponds for mallards, for example, can have a negative effect on other species.
Species management
Some wildlife can harm other species and their habitat if not controlled. This is particularly true of non-native species which are now adapted to the British countryside and can harm native plants and animals. Where populations get too large or individuals cause specific problems, nature reserve managers and game managers have to act to maintain balance.
Examples of where control may be necessary include: populations of deer which have grown to the extent that they are severely damaging habitat; magpies and crows that prey on game and songbird chicks and eggs; and the non-native mink that can severely reduce wildfowl and water vole populations.
The intention is always to maintain a balance rather than to eradicate any species.
A community in this context is a group of plants or animals existing in a habitat, usually dependent in some way on one another for survival. Only by maintaining entire communities is it likely that the complex and the interdependent needs of different species can be satisfied.
Succession
Left alone, nature changes habitats through a process called ‘succession’. As a lake fills with silt it gradually becomes a pond, then a marsh and beyond this dry land and a forest. Similarly, moorland left to nature would become covered in scrub and eventually revert to woodland.
Many of the most important wildlife communities in the UK are at an early successional stage and much effort of conservationists is taken up in suspending successional changes e.g. coppicing woodland, in order to maximise the benefits of these early successional stages.
Competition
Plants and animals compete for the same resources, usually food or space. The diversity of a particular habitat and its species is often affected by competition for the same food resource by the species present. An example of competition is that between red squirrels and grey squirrels. Grey squirrels feed on unripe hazel nuts and acorns and therefore harvest the hazel nuts before they are ready for red squirrels that prefer the ripened nuts. This leads to reduced feeding opportunities for red squirrels, causing them, depending on other factors, to decline.
In this case therefore habitat management would involve improving conditions for the more vulnerable species, i.e. the red squirrel. This could be done by, for example, not planting oak trees, on whose acorns grey squirrels thrive, in areas where grey squirrels are present.
Predation
Predation can be defined as one animal being ‘preyed upon’ or acting as a food resource, for another. For example, hedgehogs, which are preyed upon by badgers are only common in areas where badgers are scarce, such as urban settlements where badger predation is low. It has been shown that by reducing dominant predator species the surrounding communities can benefit from an increase in diversity. In game managment it has been shown that by reducing the numbers of predatory species, such as corvids (crows, magpies etc.), game managers increase the diversity of woodland species such as song birds.
Monitoring is an important part of any programme of habitat management, to ensure that work carried out has the desired outcome.
MODERN CONSERVATION
The national blueprint for conservation is the UKBAP which, as explained, was initiated after the Rio Earth Summit. It is overseen in each of the UK nations by a statutory authority; these are Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and Environment and Heritage Northern Ireland.
Beneath these government agencies is a huge variety of NGOs. These include national organisations, such as the RSPB, county wildlife trusts, local conservation groups, shooting syndicates and wildfowling clubs, all contributing at various levels. But all their efforts are directed by the UKBAP; this was produced by a steering group which identified key species and habitats that were thought to be most at risk, and separate strategies were devised for each one. Within this wider framework Local Biodiversity Action Plans (LBAPs) were developed to reflect the local needs of wildlife and its habitat. This is where the shooting community makes a vital contribution.
Shooting as an incentive for conservation
Shooting provides a powerful incentive for the conservation of habitats, for example through the creation of ponds or coppicing of woodland. But although this may provide financial returns, it is not simply a matter of money. Enjoyable sport in a self-managed and wildlife-rich landscape is often the only return sought by those who shoot.
Nevertheless the data provided by the independent PACEC study in 2006 shows that the value of conservation work undertaken by the shooting community is impressive:
- Shooting is involved in the management of an area the size of Scotland
- Two million hectares are actively managed for conservation as a result of shooting
- Shoot providers spend £250 million a year on conservation
- Shooters spend 2.7 million work days a year on conservation – the equivalent of 12,000 full-time jobs.
