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Last month we published 'RSPB Uncovered: the missing Birdcrime files' , exposing systematic failures in how the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) conducts wildlife crime investigations. The report, authored by international journalist Ben O'Rourke, examined 14 investigations spanning 1990 to 2025 and revealed how Britain's largest conservation charity has manufactured prosecutions and misled the public. Ben O'Rourke's report lifts the lid on decades of RSPB mis

A dispatch from the Peak District Moorland Group. As another shooting season draws to a close, it can be a time for reflection. Some days went well, others didn’t. The difference between red letter days and so-called poor days is often subjective. For those that are doing the shooting, being on top form or having an off day might determine their view of the day. For the staff that are turning out to help deliver the day, under the guidance of keepers and estate managers, othe

The dramatic rescue of stranded paramedics and a GP on Askrigg Moor during Storm Chandra has shone a spotlight on the essential role gamekeepers play in safeguarding remote communities. As was widely reported in today's media , Lewis, a gamekeeper from the Gunnerside Estate, didn't hesitate when he discovered an ambulance trapped in deep snow on the exposed moorland road, with a critically ill patient waiting for help and medical crews unable to reach them. Working with loca

The North Pennines National Landscape (NPNL) was the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The incoming Labour Government changed the name because that is what incoming Labour Governments do. It created a fleeting impression that they were interested, and the permanent impression that the 'Nation' owns the place. It doesn't of course. It mostly belongs to hard-pressed and hard-working private people, whose only contact with the state is to be endlessly messed abo

The RSPB's latest allegations regarding hen harriers at North Pennines represent more than poor investigative standards—they represent a systematic campaign of character assassination against gamekeepers and rural communities, built on satellite tag failures and presented as established fact to a credulous media. When the RSPB's Mark Thomas declares six tag failures "extremely concerning" and part of "a long trend," he's not presenting evidence to a court. He's issuing a pres

A damning new report examining three decades of wildlife crime investigations has exposed systematic failures at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, revealing how Britain's most trusted conservation charity has prioritised prosecutions over protection and funding over facts. 'RSPB Uncovered: the missing Birdcrime files', authored by international journalist Ben O’Rourke, draws on witness interviews, police reports, and freedom of information requests across 14 inv

A new report has exposed systematic failures in how the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) conducts wildlife crime investigations and reveals how the charity has abandoned its mission to protect Britain's birds in favour of harassing rural communities. The report, ‘RSPB Uncovered: the missing Birdcrime files’, examines 14 investigations by the charity between 1990 and 2025. By interviewing key witnesses, analysing police reports and scouring government records v

In 2025 England experienced its worst wildfire crisis on record, with over 27,000 grassland and woodland fires tackled, yet the government agency responsible for nature conservation has issued guidance that epitomises everything wrong with modern environmental bureaucracy: Natural England staff have been ordered not to tackle fires with flames exceeding 50cm in height. Let that sink in. Fifty centimetres. Less than two feet. The kind of fire that farmers and gamekeepers rout

The recent Parliamentary Questions on wildfire impacts have exposed something inexcusable: the Government is making sweeping land-management policy decisions without any consolidated assessment of wildfire consequences. This is not evidence-based policymaking—it is ideology masquerading as environmental protection. The Policy-Making Scandal When James Cartlidge MP asked for basic wildfire data—hectares burned, firefighting costs, health impacts—Defra's response was staggering

As reported yesterday by the Peak District Moorland Group , Howard Jones, an RSPB ‘Senior Investigation Officer’ gave a presentation this week in Glossop which offered a masterclass in how to manipulate an audience through selective presentation. It also highlighted why the RSPB's Investigation Team has become such a liability to genuine bird conservation. For those unfamiliar with Jones's modus operandi, the evening followed a predictable pattern: emotive imagery, carefully

When policymakers prioritise clever rhetoric over fire science, landscapes and communities pay the price "Only this morning, I was asking myself, is there anywhere more eastern Mediterranean than the UK?" With this flippant remark, Alistair Crowle—co-author of Natural England's controversial heather burning review—sought to dismiss legitimate comparisons between UK wildfire management and the catastrophic fires faced last summer in Southern Europe. It's the kind of glib, self

In recent years Natural England have portrayed traditional moorland management techniques as reckless and claimed controlled burning ‘threatens peatland habitats and increases wildfire risk’. Through selective evidence presentation and carefully choreographed policy announcements, the agency has systematically undermined experience built up generation after generation whilst presenting its own approach as unimpeachably scientific. Freedom of Information requests by the Moorla

The North York Moors presents one of Britain's most beautiful but unforgiving winter landscapes. When snow sweeps across these high moorlands, transforming familiar tracks into treacherous white expanses, it's not the emergency services who are first on the scene. It's the gamekeepers and farmworkers—those who know every fold and hollow of this terrain—who become the unlikely first responders. Stretching across more than 550 square miles of upland plateau, the North York Moor

Wild Justice spends much of its time attacking the shooting community. They've launched futile legal challenge after legal challenge against the supposedly devastating impact of non-native birds released by private estates. Yet when Sadiq Khan spent £550,000 of taxpayers' money introducing non-native white storks to one of London's poorest boroughs, Wild Justice fell conspicuously silent. For years, Wild Justice has attacked shooting estates about releasing pheasants—birds th

When Natural England and the University of Exeter embarked on their "Bog Talk" research project in 2023, they promised groundbreaking insights into environmental land management in peatland areas. What they delivered, after £52,887.59 of public money and nearly two years of delays and tensions, was a seven-page report containing findings that would surprise no one who has spent an afternoon in an upland pub. Acronym Soup The project was delivered under the RENEW (Renewing Bi

A letter to the next BBC Director General from the Regional Moorland Groups has called for urgent reform of the Corporation's rural media output. This comes after the release of  new polling which reveals a huge loss of faith in the broadcaster from people living and working in the countryside. A survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Regional Moorland Groups found that 38pc of people living in the countryside felt the BBC’s coverage of rural life was “inaccurate”– with

There's a glaring contradiction at the heart of the hen harrier conservation debate, and it's one that neither Defra nor the RSPB seems willing to address. If licensing of game shooting is truly the solution to hen harrier persecution—as conservation groups insist with absolute certainty—then why is the government pumping £424,000 annually into the National Wildlife Crime Unit for enforcement that these same groups claim has spectacularly failed? The Northern England Raptor F

When it comes to Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in unfavourable condition, private landowners—particularly driven grouse moor estates—face relentless attack. The RSPB leads the charge, routinely weaponising unfavourable SSSI statistics to demand licensing schemes, ban moorland burning, and restrict shooting. Every percentage point of unfavourable condition on private land becomes ammunition in their campaign against traditional moorland management. Yet data from

The Banbury Ornithological Society's curlew "rescue" project is an obscene waste of charitable and public funds—a textbook example of ideologically-driven conservation that prioritises feeling good over achieving results. After watching curlew numbers crash by 80% in two decades, their solution is to beg for £50,000 to erect some temporary fencing and bribe farmers. It's conservation malpractice dressed up as environmental stewardship. Let's be brutally clear about what this

A recent press release distributed by the RPSB to various papers and media organisations has been, once again, recruiting member of the public to ‘ report incidents of moorland burning on peatlands’ using their app or website.   This isn’t the first time the RSPB have encouraged the public to log incidents of burning, however the topic has of course been subject to more scrutiny this year due to the new laws in England which mean that (as of September 2025) a licence is requi