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The Moorland Association, Countryside Alliance, and National Gamekeepers Organisation have joined forces to get grouse conservation and shooting recognised in the UK's new Inventories of Living Heritage. The campaign, Our Upland Living Heritage , launched today with a simple but powerful argument: the traditions, skills, and community networks built around moorland management are as much a part of Britain's cultural fabric as bell-ringing, dry-stone walling, or Highland games

Ministers told Parliament a key burning report was rigorously peer-reviewed. Freedom of Information disclosures tell a very different story. Natural England's evidence review on managed burning — a document now shaping policy, stewardship conditions, and regulatory enforcement across England's uplands — was assured to Parliament as having undergone "rigorous peer review." It is a claim that, under the weight of the agency's own disclosed records, appears increasingly difficul

Packham with convicted terrorist bomb maker Mel Broughton Chris Packham’s shrills of hysteria get more ridiculous by the day. In his latest effort to demonise rural communities he wants you to believe that the Peak District is a ‘Raptor death zone’. Speaking about his time filming Springwatch, the BBC presenter claimed that during three weeks at the National Trust's Longshaw Estate, he did not see "a single Buzzard or a single Kite flying over," describing the managed moorla

Nobody enjoys snaring. Even those who do it for a living take no pleasure in it. Effective snaring demands considerable skill, good equipment, real commitment, and hard physical work. It is also a sitting duck for critics: if anything goes wrong, it will be front-page news; if nothing goes wrong, it is disturbingly easy to stage a shock-horror photograph with a roadkill badger or cat. Yet snaring, in its modern form, remains one of the most important tools available to conser

As was reported by the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group , this is male hen harrier 'Frank' — arguably the most celebrated and productive breeding male hen harrier in recent English history. Ringed and fitted with a GPS tracker as a nestling in August 2018 in Cumbria, Frank went on to breed polygamously across managed grouse moors in the Yorkshire Dales from 2019 to 2025, fathering chicks well into double figures with multiple females. He was a conservation triumph by any measur

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