You'd think this was two pictures spliced together. It's not. The dividing line is a fence, on a slope in mid-Wales.
On the left: sheep grazing.
On the right: the start of natural regeneration.
If the sheep are kept out for long enough, it will revert to temperate rainforest.
On the left: sheep grazing.
On the right: the start of natural regeneration.
If the sheep are kept out for long enough, it will revert to temperate rainforest.
Unfortunately, in many places, the opposite process is happening. Existing woods are being destroyed by sheep. No trees have established here for over 100 years, as sheep graze out the seedlings. The old trees die off and the woods are gradually replaced by grass and bracken.
I see this all over mid-Wales. Landowners aren't allowed to clear their native woods, but they don't have to. If they wait long enough, the sheep will do it for them.
It's a condition of farm subsidies that sheep are kept out of the woods, but it seems completely unenforced.
It's a condition of farm subsidies that sheep are kept out of the woods, but it seems completely unenforced.
Please remember that this is happening only because of public money. Sheep farming is loss-making throughout the uplands. It is sustained by farm subsidies: your money and mine.
Shouldn't we be getting a better deal?
Shouldn't we be getting a better deal?
The Agriculture Bill is supposed to replace the current, perverse subsidy system with one based on public money for public goods.
But public goods aren't defined in the bill, regulations will be replaced by voluntarism, and monitoring and enforcement are massively underfunded.
But public goods aren't defined in the bill, regulations will be replaced by voluntarism, and monitoring and enforcement are massively underfunded.
At present, there's no guarantee that the new system will be better than the existing one. Unless we demand better, we could find ourselves continuing to pay for ecological destruction.
