Why are Public Consultations Important to Shooting?
BASC responds to national landscape management plan consultations
BASC's head of uplands Alex Farrell outlines the organisation's responses to consultations on national landscape management plans for the North Pennines and the Forest of Bowland.
Policy work at BASC includes responding to consultations that affect shooting and conservation at regional, national and international level. This includes engaging with the development of plans for national parks and other designated areas, with the aim of securing a balanced approach to shooting in local strategies and policies.
Sometimes these consultations open with negative narratives about shooting that need to be challenged. Recent consultations on national landscape management plans for the North Pennines and the Forest of Bowland are a case in point.
North Pennines national landscape management plan
In responding to the North Pennines draft plan, BASC challenged unevidenced proposals for 500-metre exclusion zones for gamebird releasing or feeding in or around various habitats and designated areas. It is not the role of a management plan to overrule due process on designated wildlife sites.
Rather than such a blanket prescriptive approach, BASC recommended that gamebird release should follow the GWCT's sustainable gamebird release guidelines and the Code of Good Shooting Practice, covering siting, release densities and complementary habitat and species management.
BASC also argued that lawful practices such as burning and cutting should not be singled out or discouraged where evidence shows they deliver multiple environmental and land management benefits.
In addition, BASC recommended that the plan should explicitly acknowledge predator and prey dynamics. Ground-nesting waders are particularly vulnerable to predation in spring, and predator control has been shown to increase nesting success. It should be recognised as a legitimate conservation tool.
Forest of Bowland national landscape management plan
The draft Forest of Bowland management plan sets out ambitious environmental and climate goals. BASC welcomed its recognition of the role that estates and gamekeepers play in wildlife and landscape management, and reinforced that this contribution should be consistently reflected throughout the plan.
BASC highlighted the need for clear delivery and cost models, sustainable peatland management, and the importance of maintaining habitats that support all species. Collaborative, locally led initiatives will be essential to achieving these outcomes, alongside maintaining operational capacity across farms, estates and gamekeeping teams.
Many of Bowland's most valued habitats and species rely on ongoing, skilled management, and effective delivery would not be possible without farmers, landowners, gamekeepers and estate staff.
BASC also emphasised that lawful, evidence-led predator management should be clearly framed as a tool to support breeding success for priority ground-nesting species, with appropriate monitoring and adaptive review. Restoration alone is not sufficient. Active, ongoing land management is vital to ensure resilience to wildfire, extreme weather and ecological change.
Outcomes
BASC aims for all its recommendations to be adopted and for improvements to be made to management plans. In practice, not every proposal will be reflected in the final documentation. It is therefore important to keep dialogue open, and BASC will continue to work closely with national landscape teams to improve the plans wherever possible.
Whatever the outcome in terms of plan content, it will be the ongoing engagement of local people with those responsible for implementation that ultimately makes the difference.
Local knowledge is vital for those running estates, and that includes attending public meetings and challenging ill-considered proposals at an early stage. That is where BASC can help. Members are encouraged to get in touch with concerns so that BASC can intervene.
By working together, it is possible to ensure that conservation ambitions are delivered in ways that sustain both landscapes and rural communities. Sustainable shooting and environmental stewardship are not opposing forces. Properly recognised and supported, they go hand in hand.
Members are encouraged to stay engaged with consultations in their area. That insight strengthens BASC's voice and helps secure practical, balanced outcomes for the future.