At today’s AGM, the Chair of RSPB Council, Kevin Cox, made this announcement.
“There is growing concern about the environmental impact (including for carbon, water and biodiversity) of intensive forms of game bird shooting and associated land management practices. This includes both driven grouse moor management (which involves shooting our native red grouse) and largescale release of non-native game birds, primarily pheasants and red-legged partridges, now in excess of 40 million birds annually.
Environmental concerns include the ongoing and systematic illegal persecution of birds of prey such as hen harriers on some sporting estates; the ecological impact of high numbers of game birds released into the countryside increasing the density of generalist predators; the mass culling of mountain hares in some parts of our uplands; the use of lead ammunition; the impact of burning peatlands and medicating wild animals for sport shooting.
In response to the evidence about the scale of the environmental impact and growing public concern, including from our membership, the RSPB’s Council has agreed to review our policy on game bird shooting and associated land management.
This is an emotive and sometimes controversial subject but we want to use our scientific rigour to develop a set of conservation tests for management practices associated with game bird shooting. We will use these to guide the RSPB’s conservation policy, practice and communications, consistent with the ongoing climate and ecological emergency, respectful of our charitable objectives and maintaining the confidence and support of our members.
We intend to do this, informed by the views of members and other stakeholders many of whom we have engaged with on these issues for decades.
The exact process we shall follow to conduct this review will be communicated as soon as possible. The intention is to complete this work as soon as is practically possible but in order to engage people in the right way and ensure we have the best available evidence it might take until the next AGM, though we hope that it will be completed sooner than that.
And to avoid doubt, we shall in this period, while the review is being conducted, continue to call for the introduction of licensing of driven grouse shooting.”
I shall say more on this subject in due course. But if you do have any immediate reaction, please do get in touch as it would be great to hear your views.
I know that. But I’m saying, it’s not straightforward as some members of this forum have suggested, as the RSPB can’t make changes to the Royal Charter themselves, as the RSPB can only make recommendations to the Privy Council and I don’t think this change will be easy as other changes over the last few years.. Also as one member of this forum suggested ditch the royal charter, it would be very difficult and practically impossible and you can get all the details by googling to see why. This could be more difficult than usual as the Privy Council would have to hear from other organisations such as gamekeepers etc, before considering any changes to the RSPB’s royal charter and it won’t be 100% certain that this change in this review would be allowed if the RSPB recommend changes to there royal charter to the privy council to consider.
Regards,
Ian.
Great news.
"Since then, the Charter and Statutes have been updated a number of times. Most recently, the RSPB went through a constitutional review process in 2016 – 2019, leading to the current Charter and Statutes and the new Bye-Laws. The Privy Council approved our new Charter and Statutes in February 2019."
A welcome development. The key words for me are "use our scientific rigour". Evidence based conservation is what the RSPB is all about. The RSPB is not an animal rights charity. There are clearly big problems that need to be addressed, most obviously with driven grouse shooting, which is why I support licensing. In the event of a future government imposing a ban on any form of shooting, the question needs to be asked: what land use changes would take place and what would be the consequences for conservation. People own and occupy land for two main reasons, business or pleasure, often both combined. If they can't continue their pleasure, they (or whoever they sell the land to) will do whatever financial forces dictate.
As I said above. It’s not straight forward if you understand the governance of the RSPB, as it would need any decision about this by the privy council and if the RSPB wanted to change any part of the royal charter the RSPB would have to ask the privy council to make the changes. As a member of the forum said above that the RSPB should ditch the royal charter. That’s practically impossible if you google what I suggested in reply to that members post.