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BACK__________________________________________________________________________________________________
April 2008
Dear Brownhairstreakers,
After the various tales of woe related in recent ebulletins it is good to be able to start this one on a positive note. Given what is happening with hedgerows in the wider countryside, it is reassuring that the Brown Hairstreak is well represented on the various nature reserves within the Forest of Feckenham where we have some measure of control over management. The discovery of an egg by Trevor Bucknall at Eades Meadow NNR near Hanbury on 20th March now means that we have confirmed breeding Brown Hairstreaks on no fewer than seven reserves managed, either exclusively or on a partnership basis, by the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. This is great news and something to celebrate, as is the fact that both the Trust and Butterfly Conservation are marking their 40th anniversary this year. For both organisations, a number of special events are being planned over the course of the spring and summer. Butterfly Conservation was founded on 7th March, 1968 (three weeks ahead of the Trust) and all local branches took part the following weekend in a special Day of Action aimed at celebrating the successes and achievements of the charity but also drawing attention to the many problems still facing our butterflies and moths. In the West Midlands, this celebration was combined with our annual Action Earth event at Grafton Wood. Action Earth which runs through to the end of July is Britain's largest environmental campaign, organised by national charity CSV (Community Service Volunteers) and supported this year by Morrisons Supermarkets. We had a very good turnout of volunteers on the day and we managed to cut and clear a large area of overmature blackthorn which should provide over the next couple of years some excellent Brown Hairstreak habitat. The plastic tabard supplied by Action Earth for promotional purposes for the event was happily seized upon and proved the ideal before and after race garment for one of our local Brown Hairstreak Champions, John East, who ran last week's London Marathon (see photo). Congratulations to John who, as well as achieving his personal best time in the race and surviving to tell the tale, also raised nearly £2,000 for Birmingham Heartlands Hospital.
As part of their anniversary celebrations, WWT has organised a 40 day Festival for Wildlife beginning next weekend and extending through to early June. Of local interest is the Spring Open Day at Tiddesley Wood near Pershore on Sunday, 4th May beginning at 10.00 am, where Butterfly Conservation will be running a stall and leading a guided walk, and an early morning bird walk planned for Saturday, 10th May at Grafton Wood starting from the Three Parishes Hall at 6.00 am and finishing up back at the hall for bacon butties around 8.30 am. This latter event is, in part, a replacement for our normal Brown Hairstreak caterpillar search which we have decided to cancel as most of the eggs tagged in anticipation of this event were lost as a result of the flailing described in the last bulletin. Later on in the year, Butterfly Conservation and the Trust are running some events jointly at both Grafton Wood and Monkwood and full details of these events will be included in future ebulletins.
Since the last bulletin, with maps provided by Natural England, we have been trying to survey those farms that have taken up the hedgerow option within the Entry Level Stewardship scheme and this has proven very illuminating. ELS was introduced to address landscape scale environmental problems and provides payments to farmers to protect and enhance important environmental features. The scheme works on a points basis with points being earned where hedges included in the scheme are maintained at a height of at least 1.5 metres and where cutting is no more than once in two years. The hope was that this would lead to changes in the way that hedgerows are being managed and to bring benefits to wildlife including the Brown Hairstreak. The Entry Level scheme has been designed in a way that puts the onus on farmers to determine what are the important environmental features on their farm and they are given a free choice from a menu of options as to which to include. This seems a fundamental weakness; there is no advisory role played by Natural England so, unless the farmer accesses help and advice from elsewhere, there are no assurances that what is included in the agreement in any way overcomes the landscape scale environmental problems the scheme was intended to address. Because of the way the points system works, only a small proportion of farm hedges need to be entered in the scheme in order to reach the required target for payment and it is farmers that select which hedgerows to include and which to exclude.
Another problem is that this hands-off approach of Natural England also applies to compliance. There appears to be no proper system of monitoring in place to ensure that the various prescriptions in the agreement are being followed. We have now looked at over 20 farms that have taken up the hedgerow option and, while without sight of the actual farm agreement it is impossible for us to judge whether farms are compliant or not, our observations suggest that there is very little evidence to suggest that ELS has brought about any real change in the way the majority of hedgerows are managed. As far as we could see, and we kept our observations to public roads and footpaths, on most farms visited in excess of 75% hedgerows had been flailed this winter and on many farms this figure was well over 90% (a full report will be shortly available). Indeed, in the majority of cases, it was impossible to distinguish any difference between the hedgerow management practices of a farm within ELS and an adjacent farm outside the scheme. This seems a pretty powerful indictment of a scheme designed to address landscape-scale environmental problems and costing annually thousands of pounds of taxpayer's money. In some cases, there may be confusion in the minds of some landowners regarding what is meant by rotational cutting and that this may have led to an "on year off year" approach to flailing with all the hedges being cut the same year rather than some of the hedges being cut in rotation every year, but the real weakness is the scheme itself. It is simply too easy for the necessary points to be accumulated without any really significant changes to hedge cutting regimes taking place and, with no technical input from Natural England or anyone else and no proper monitoring of the scheme, it seems largely a matter of chance whether what takes place is beneficial to wildlife or not. We understand that a review is currently taking place on the operation of ELS nationally so in this context our findings are timely. With butterflies and moths and many farmland birds continuing to decline, it is really important that agri-environment schemes actually deliver the wildlife benefits for which they were intended. Our experience of hedgecutting in Worcs this year in particular, which is mirrored in other parts of the country, shows just how far we have still to go.
Mike Williams
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion