Natural England’s partnership with BASC (British Association for Shooting and Conservation)
In April 2015 Natural England struck up a formal partnership deal with the BASC on the grounds of “common interest”.
Formal documents have been signed with BASC, and so it is not surprising that all submissions from Against Corvid Traps (ACT) in relation to reform of the General Licence come to nothing.
Natural England oversees the General Licence that on paper provides some protection to birds in corvid traps: such as fixed inspection times, wholesome food, water, etc. Following our submissions a few years ago, recommendations were made by a Natural England officer for some of our suggested reforms. However, they were never implemented and now never will be while BASC are at the driving wheel.
Our research:
Appointed in 2014 the Natural England Chairman is Andrew Sells and sits on the DEFRA board. He donated £137,500 to the Tory Party, and was given the job by Environment Minister, Owen Patterson: the man behind the badger cull. Mr Sells private business interests include Venture Capital projects and house building (Linden Homes). He is also treasurer to the “Policy Exchange” which thought up the idea of biodiversity offsetting: here you get away with destroying wildlife habitat by planting a few trees somewhere else.
Mr Sells also launched the Wildlife Habitat Trust Stamp at the 2015 Game Fair. This is designed to extract money from the general public for what is promoted at “conservation”. However, this Trust was founded by BASC in 1986 for the sole purpose of buying land (mainly coastal marsh) for wildfowling (duck and geese shooting) purposes.
So you can see why PPS9 (Planning policy Statement 9) designed to protect habitat is effectively ignored, and why all reforms on trapping legislation and wildlife protection are now stalled.