Wild Justice 37 - follow up to our e-action

 

Hi everyone!   It's nearly two weeks since our e-action on Hen Harriers and grouse moors closed. An amazing 123,678 people took part from right across the UK. Your local elected politician, whether it be your Senedd member in Wales, your MSP in Scotland, your MLA in Northern Ireland or your MP in England received many emails - some received hundreds of emails from their constituents.  Thank you for making this such a well-supported action. These things really do make a difference by drawing politicians' attention to an issue of public concern that they may have known nothing about before.   This newsletter equips you with information if you would like to push home your concerns about the illegal killing of raptors and the management of grouse moors, so this is less a newsletter and more a briefing. If you are happy with having supported the e-action and want to leave it at that, then that is fine, thank you for taking part and our next newsletter will have a lot more news on the breadth of Wild Justice's campaigns and legal actions.   But if you are motivated to take things further then here is advice on what you could do depending on where you live, what your politician has done and which political party they belong to.   1. Your politician has not responded to you yet The e-action started over five weeks ago and ended two weeks ago tomorrow. You should have had a response from your politician by now. The response you will have had if you have received one is not a personal letter just for you it will be a standard letter drafted by the political party for all their representatives to use - it's a cut and paste job. That's fine, but don't feel sorry for your politician because of the work involved, it's a standard part of the job, the response will probably have been sent out by an intern or staff member and it's the least you should expect from your political representative.   If you haven't had a response then contact your elected politician by email with a polite nudge along the following lines:   Dear [name] I took part in an e-action recently about illegal persecution of birds of prey, especially Hen Harriers, and the management of our uplands for grouse shooting. I have not had a response from you yet, though I know that tens of thousands of others have had responses from their political representatives. I'd be grateful if you could respond quickly as this is a matter of importance to me. [Your name and postal address (to show you are a constituent)].   How to find out your politician's identity and contact details: England (MPs), Scotland (MSPs), Wales (MSs) Northern Ireland (MLAs).   2. If you live in Scotland. Several years ago the Scottish government commissioned a report, called the Werritty report after its Chair Prof Adam Werritty, on licensing of grouse shooting in Scotland. That report took ages to produce and recommended that licensing should be introduced. The Scottish SNP government has been sitting on that recommendation since November 2019 despite the licensing of grouse shooting being an SNP policy. It is time that the SNP government responded to the Werritty report and brought in plans for licensing (even though we believe that licensing will only be a partial solution, it will be a step forward). If you live in Scotland you might like to contact your consituency MSP (if they are SNP), your regional MSP (if they are SNP) and the Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham (email: CabSecECCLR@gov.scot) along the following lines:   Dear [name of MSP and/or Cabinet Secretary ] I took part in an e-action recently about illegal persecution of birds of prey, especially Hen Harriers, and the management of our uplands for grouse shooting. I am writing to you to ask when the Scottish government will respond to the Werritty report on this matter. I hope it will be very soon. My own view is licensing of grouse shooting is an important next step in the move to make our hills richer in wildlife and more sustainably managed and so I hope to see plans for the rapid introduction of licensing being the essence of the Scottish government response. Please let me know what the timetable for action is. Thank you. [Your name and postal address (to show you are a constituent and a Scottish voter)].   How to find out your politician's identity and contact details: click here. Roseanna Cunningham's email: CabSecECCLR@gov.scot   3. If you live in England. Even in the last 10 days there have been developments on Hen Harrier persecution in England. Two things have happened which you could bring to the attention of your MP, please.   Dear [name of MP] I took part in an e-action recently about illegal persecution of birds of prey, especially Hen Harriers, and the management of our uplands for grouse shooting. These are matters of great importance to me. Since then two issues have come to my attention that I would like you to take up with DEFRA on my behalf please. 1. The RSPB has published an account of alleged illegal activity near a Hen Harrier nest on the border of Yorkshire and Cumbria this year - click here. The statutory body responsible for nature conservation in England, Natural England, a DEFRA-funded agency, did not publicise this event and that is a matter of great concern to me since Natural England is supposed to be spear-heading the conservation of Hen Harriers. Please find out for me whether the RSPB account is true, and if so, why Natural England had refused to make those facts publicly known. 2. Last week, Greg Smith MP (Buckingham, Conservative) asked a parliamentary question about the RSPB and Hen Harriers to which the DEFRA Minister, Rebecca Pow replied (click here). It appears from the RSPB statement last week that the answer that the minister gave, on information provided to her by Natural England, was not true (see here). This is a serious matter. Please ask the Minister whether her statement was true and if not what measure she intends to take to correct her (I'm sure, unintentional) mistake and to investigate why Natural England gave her incorrect information. I [am/am not] an RSPB member [and/but] I have to tell you that I trust them more than I trust government ministers and statutory agencies. If the RSPB is not telling the truth that would colour my view of them, but if their account is true, as I strongly suspect that it is, then Natural England does not appear to be carrying out its public duties adequately.  My suspicion is that Natural England has become far too close to the shooting industry and has lost sight of its public duties. But I await DEFRA's response with interest. [Your name and postal address to show you are a constituent].     4. If you live in the Buckingham constituency of Greg Smith MP. Your MP asked a parliamentary question last week which looks very much like a planted question (there is nothing particularly wrong about that) which was intended to damage the reputation of the RSPB - that is a bit underhand. If we were constituents of your MP then we would write to him as follows:   Dear Mr Smith I was pleased to see you ask parliamentary questions about Hen Harriers last week.The conservation of Hen Harriers is a matter very close to my own heart. Your questions were a little bit odd though - they were about the RSPB as much as they were about Hen Harriers.  Could you please tell me what prompted you to ask these questions? Were they drafted for you (I suspect they were) and if so, by whom, please? It also emerges from a statement released on a blog by RSPB on Friday, and in a blog by Mark Avery, that the answer that the minister, Rebecca Pow, gave to your question was not factually correct. Please follow this up with the minister who got her information from a statutory agency, Natural England. Either the RSPB is not telling the truth or Natural England gave Ms Pow inaccurate information with which to answer your question. I would like to know which it was, and I'm sure you would too. When you find out, please let me know (and I'd like to know where the question came from in the first place please). [Your name and postal address to show you are a constituent].   Phew!  That's it for now. Please take action if you can - every email helps spread the word and puts pressure on politicians to act - and politicians do work for us. Our next newsletter will have much more news in it!     Wild Justice (Directors: Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay).   PS The number of people receiving this newsletter has grown considerably, gradually over time and got an extra boost through people subscribing when they took part in the e-action. We now have well over 30,000 newsletter subscribers - thank you. And thank you to those new subscribers who donated when they received a welcome e-mail after the e-action. All our work is funded through donations and the three of us are unpaid volunteers!  We appreciate your support.     This email was sent to you because you subscribed to it through the Wild Justice website or through our recent e-action where you ticked a box.  Thank you. We will only use your personal details to send you the Wild Justice newsletter. We will not give or sell your details to anyone else.  You can unsubscribe at any time: there is an unsubscribe button at the foot of this email or you can reply to this email and ask us to remove you from the list (the former will happen immediately, the latter might take a few days).

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