Examination of Witnesses (Questions 510
- 519)
TUESDAY 13 JUNE 2000
DR DICK
POTTS AND
DR NIGEL
BOATMAN
Chairman
510. Welcome to the Committee. Would you like
to identify yourselves for the record please.
(Dr Potts) I am Dick Potts. I am Director
General of the Game Conservancy Trust. I have worked on biodiversity
on farmland for 39 years publishing the first scientific work
on biodiversity in 1970.
(Dr Boatman) I am Nigel Boatman and I am Director
of the Allerton Project and also Head of Agricultural Policy for
the Game Conservancy Trust.
511. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction
or are you happy to go straight into questions on your written
evidence?
(Dr Potts) We are happy for you to go straight in.
We anticipate some things.
Mr Olner
512. Could you tell the Committee what role
you have played in the Biodiversity Action Plan process and what
would you identify in that role as the main strengths and weaknesses?
(Dr Potts) Thank you. Can I take that first. We are
going to do a sort of double act. Having worked for 39 years on
farmland and watching and measuring the biodiversity it was really
a good thing to see the Biodiversity Action Plans in 1995. We
are involved in two ways, through the Species Action Plans and
the Habitat Action Plans. I might say right at the outset I think
there ought to be more emphasis on habitats and less on species.
513. Is that because you usually breed them
to get rid of them?
(Dr Potts) Sorry?
514. Is that because you usually breed them
to shoot them afterwards?
(Dr Potts) No, no, I am thinking that if you look
after the habitats you look after a whole suite of species in
those habitats whereas if you look after particular species you
may not be looking after the habitats. We are involved in three
Species Action Plans. The first one is the brown hare and actually
there is an argument to be made as to whether it should be subject
to the Biodiversity Action Plan. Its status is quite good. The
only thing that really compromises its status is the fox, if there
are lots of foxes we will not have many hares. We are joint leaders
with the Mammal Society on that one. The second Species Action
Plan we are involved with is the black grouse and we are jointly
doing that with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
That is going extremely well. This is a species which nationally
has gone down by 95 per cent and we have doubled its numbers in
areas where we have carried out the plans in the years since 1995.
The final one, is the grey partridge which is a species which
I have studied all my working life. It is of utmost concern for
two reason. The first one is it is a barometer—to go back
to my earlier point about habitats—for extensive farming.
I published a paper in 1992, which has not been challenged yet,
which said there were 8,000 species which are behaving, status-wise,
like the grey partridge, I am including insects and plants as
well; a whole ecosystem is declining. The Action Plan was published
in 1995 and our second cause for concern is that since then it
has been in free fall. The population is declining so fast we
cannot rule out extinction.
515. Why?
(Dr Potts) It was brought to its knees, so to speak,
by intensive farming. Basically what happened was the use of herbicides
removed the insects which lived on weeds which were the crucial
food of partridge chicks. So this was a system effect, the pesticides
were not killing the partridges they were affecting the ecosystem.
That brought the species to a situation where it was declining
at about four per cent per year. That has gone on for a very long
time, it started in 1962. Then in recent years we have had cold
summers, we know they do not like cold wet summers and also there
has been a huge increase in the predator populations in the countryside:
crows, magpies, foxes, stoats, all sorts of species have increased
and they are all inimical to a population which is on its knees,
frankly. It has declined by five and a half million pairs since
1962, so any inimical factor is difficult to cope with. The final
part of my answer to your question is the Habitat Action Plans,
and we are on two steering groups. We are on a steering group
which is predominately organised by the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds called the Lowland Farmland Bird Species Action
Plan Steering Group, and the grey partridge is one of those, there
are several other species of birds there.
516. Could I ask in all of these roles you played—coming
back to my main question—what were the weaknesses in those
roles you played? Can you highlight something where even though
you have played this role at the end of the day something has
not happened?
(Dr Potts) Yes, there is a weakness which you have
already identified. You put it rather eloquently in a way, although
I resent it that we are associated with hunting and shooting.
We would not know anything about the problem had we not been funded
by the people who wanted to shoot game. That is our biggest weakness
in what we are trying to do. For example, when we argued about
insecticides with the pesticide manufacturers, we had a huge series
of arguments in the 1980s with the insecticide manufacturers.
517. Did you have arguments with the farming
community?
(Dr Potts) No.
518. But they were using it?
(Dr Potts) Yes, but they do not want to use things
that are not sustainable. What they say is—they have always
said this to us—there is competition in farming, and they
will do what their competitors do. If the competitors are restrained
by the Government or whatever then they will fall in line with
that. The point was the insecticide manufacturers were saying
"Oh you only want to protect partridges from insecticides
in the summer so that you can shoot them in the autumn" which
was a ridiculous argument. That is the biggest weakness in our
work.
519. Given the Biodiversity Action Plans are
fairly detailed and hugely bureaucratic, what actions should be
taken to improve them?
(Dr Boatman) We feel that there is insufficient co-ordination
in the way that Biodiversity Action Plans are carried out, particularly
with our connection with the grey partridge plan. We find that
what is going on at local levels is often very different from
what is in the national plan. In fact some local organisations
are more or less ignoring the national plan and setting up their
own agenda. Often there is an uncoordinated approach which I think
is exacerbated by the fact that there is no funding or very little
funding for the whole process so it is all carried out by volunteers.
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