Submission on CAP from British Wildlife Management.
Summary
Pillar 2 payments are a waste of money without predator management.
All of the CAP payments should be conditional on allowing free best practice private sector management of the fox, badger, deer, mink and hare, together with professional keepering to control corvid's, common raptors, grey squirrels and other major predator problems.
Special capital investment payments should be made available to the moorlands for the capital improvements needed to remove bracken and unpalatable toxic, rank, tick infested vegetation, and replace it with reseeding of both heather and palatable grasses, together with lime for improved grazing, and the management of a whole range of other beneficial plant species.
A ten-fold increase in the carrying capacity of native winter hardy cattle and sheep would trigger a ten-fold increase in wild bird species, provided compulsory predator controls and keepering was imposed.
Britain's wildlife would return, profitable livestock farming would be possible with increased economies of scale, and Upland Farming and farmers would survive, making a major contribution to both the economy and creating beauty.
No need for welfare payments.
Tourists and the public would be able to enjoy biologically rich and viable landscapes, rather than the current Uplands devastation created by the RSPB and Un-Natural England.
We should have a new Wildlife Management and Forest Service, encompassing biodiversity, agriculture, fisheries and food by knocking a further £1bn of Defra's annual budget.
We can have our own profitable agricultural industry, if our farmers are allowed a genuine level playing field with their competitors, together with sound business planning at all levels nationally.
CAP payments should not be paid to organisations such as the RSPB and the National Trust, until such time as their sites are restored to the SSSI status, which existed when they were taken over.
Fair compensation should be paid to commoners, graziers and Upland farmers, for loss of income resulting from Defra’s and Natural England’s disasterous Upland Clearances instigated on the criminal excuse of over-grazing.
Edmund Marriage - British Wildlife Management.