When I was a young child, I met a man with a shotgun in the country and I asked him why he had a gun. He replied that he is a Gamekeeper. I asked him what a Gamekeeper does. He told me he killed all of the vermin. I asked him what is vermin. He said it is Foxes, Badgers, Stoats, Weasels, Rats, Hen Harriers, Hawks, Eagles and Falcons. I was shocked and asked him what animals are left. He replied : Pheasant, Partridges and Grouse and the Master shoots them.
We bought a bungalow with an overgrown unloved 2.5 acre field attached. Now, after over a decade of hard work I am proud to say it is a woodland with over 3000 native trees. It is my paradise.
I live in the city and have a large garden. Some neighbours think it's a partly overgrown wilderness, but actually I have planted Hazel, Blackthorn , Hawthorn, Buckthorn, Rowan and a spindle. It's an understory under the neighbours trees , sycamores and poplar, which shade my garden on the south border. I figure when the big trees reach the end of their life , there will be a small wood to replace them. I live in a conservation area so I'm hoping the trees will reach a girth so they cant be chopped down willy nilly before I die or have to give up the garden. It's one of the things I'm trying to do to support diversity and wildlife.
Your land should now be given to the people to roam freely, trample the saplings you planted, litter freely, build camp fires and do as they wish. You should also be punished and pay more tax for owning land. At least this is what the Government want !!
@jamesashford9197 yes, that's the thing. 90% of people don't give a stuff about how to use the free to roam land without trashing it, leaving litter, etc. Covid taught us that.
@@michelleelsom6827 It's more to do with peoples disconnect from the land, we live rootless lives and its causing sickness upon society and the land. Maybe bringing people back to the land will help to grow a reverence for nature in society instead of seeing people as a nuisance (the littering and what not is a psychological expression), for we are all earths children and maybe the pollution and destruction of the earth is actually the earths expression on a deeper level.
Really pisses me off when people say that landowners know what is best for their land. Being a landowner does not automatically mean you know how to use land in a good way. If you're a gamekeeper your priority isn't biodiversity but game shooting; if you're a farmer your priority isn't biodiversity it's food production; if you're Forestry England your priority isn't biodiversity it's timber production. If you own a golf course your priority isn't biodiversity it is profit.
As an organic FARMER I need to make a profit ,however I am an organic farmer because I believe in its principles and not because it will make me more money.
"How can wealth persuade poverty to use its politican freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Consertive politics in the 20th century." Aneurin Bevan.
I've listened to all this and you're right it's mind blowing. I can't remember when I have previously heard two people espouse the communist theory without considering the requirement of a dictator and to look at the record of communism. I am also fascinated by the sheer lack of actual knowledge, the distortion of realism and the serial lies. If it wasn't so alarming it would be hilarious
I'm from the North of Scotland, and to be fair, the grouse and deer don't get wasted, they get sold by the estate to game butchers. I actually eat a lot of game as I'd rather eat meat that lived wild and free than animals that were cruelly, pollutingly, industrially farmed. But we absolutely need land reform, estates should be managed by the communities they serve and practices of murdering so called 'pest' species need to be stopped. I'm also in favour of managed upland forests and crofting in larger numbers onces again.
@@CW-bw7pv There will always be game in responsibly managed land, the nature of it depends on our decisions in land management. You get Grouse are native to Northern Britain, right? There will be less with less moorland, but they will still exist in upland areas and there will be other species instead/in addition. I doubt we will bother with chicken from Brazil, their farming standards are too low. As it happens I do sometimes eat poultry, but only from my friend's farm where I know they are 100% free range, scratting about and living pretty unrestricted overall.
@@zoebenefer6149 Grouse *farming* is terrible for nature (ie - artificially keeping too much land as moor and selling good grain to feed and fatten an excessively large Grouse population in order to let a bunch of millionaires and billionaires loose on the hills with shotguns.)
Thanks for this. Rural affairs are a massive Novara Media blind spot. The ignorance on the subject displayed by many of your hosts is plain to see (this comes from a place of love and respect for what you guys do). I'd like to see you spend more time on it, or get a rural correspondent. Whilst the left media hyper focus on parliamentary politics, a very visible political war is being held in the countryside, it's about time it got the coverage it deserves. Guy Shrubsole is exactly the type of person we need in the struggle against disinterested and exploitative land owners, is right lad!!!
The recent revolt by "farmers" over inheritence tax is a classic example of 1. the govt failing to get to the heart of a problem 2. the way the NFU is controlled by large landowners. 3. The ignorance of the general public fed on countryside myths
So Glad to see this spoken out loud. I've been banging on about the moorlands and bio desert and re-wilding for my entire life. Finally it sees daylight. Thank you Novara.
Why are big finnancial benefits paid to these old aristocratic landowners when they already hold so much wealth? Why are these benefits not studied and discussed, in depth, [ it is kept pretty quiet] the same way that welfare benefits that cover a basic lifestyle, are on podcasts?Ultimately the giving of benefits has been turned upside down. It is shameful that rich landowners receive benefits. It is dreadful that kids go hungry in the UK due to our governments choice to pay poverty welfare rates, often while the rich Landowners take extortionate rents from the same poorest .Does this sound just or logical?
Simply because the aristocracy is near to the top of the British Establishment. The British Establishment is a highly complex, yet extremely effective, mechanism by which the wealthy and powerful retain wealth and power. The British Establishment is a conspiracy fact rather than a conspiracy theory.
@@davidpalk5010 😂clueless. Every country that isn't a dump and has it's sh*t together has this hierarchy. Without it, foreign agents snake their way in and destroy from within. Like what's happening currently en masse.... you think the UK is the only one to protect its own elite? All I ever read on YT comments even remotely associated with any western country or country associated with western values etc is propaganda like this. Every. Single. Video. It's becoming obvious to everyone that isn't a vegetable or a child. Guess that's exactly your target audience. Guess sending billions to foreign countries and randoms that nobody knows about is the answer though eh 👍 enjoy socialism if it comes. It's going to be epic, for almost nobody.
Landowners have always been at the heart of Establishment and Govt in this country. They were and still are the legislature. That's why there are huge economic and planning advantages for people with land. Why do you think Jeremy Clarkson spent £10M of his hard-earned fortune on a farm which supposedly produces absolutely no return on that investment? He certainly didn't do it for the good of nature...
You think clarkson wanted to be apart of the legislature? Give your head a wobble. He detests the legislature. If you actually watched his series you'd know. But, nah, you'd rather just judge someone with more money then you. Typical socialist.
@@craigjones4121 Craig, it's TV. It's not real. You, and many others, have been had. It may be presented as real - just inept, bumbling, wealthy Clarkson and clever, sensible, underpaid Kaleb, in an endearing and comical (totally staged!) relationship, doing entertaining country things to engage dozing sofa dwellers with pizza boxes in their laps. But, it's actually a broadcast production with a large crew, plans, scripts, budgets, schedules, deadlines, and a major commercial client to satisfy. It's fake. Clarkson could easily have got "the lifestyle" with a £1M ten acre farm, so why "waste" an additional £9M on a thousand acres if not for reason of financial advantage? Clarkson may play the fool, but he's far from stupid. Anyhow, if Clarkson were to expire next January, and the farm were to be passed down through his family, it would then (since the budget) be due around £2M inheritance tax. Unexpectedly, he's rather cross about the sudden loss of that particular longstanding tax break for the rich. It remains a tax break though, as the tax is still discounted by 50%. The IHT bill on that farm should really be about £4M. The rich can therefore continue to use land ownership to avoid their fair share of tax.
Just about to complete my Masters in Environmental Management and Monitoring, I also have my BSc in Biology, focusing primarily on ecology. The current tone of each lecture (especially ecological ones) is highly negative in relation to the current state of the UK's environment; there are too many organisations disregarding the rules, either by incompetence or corruption. But the thing is, we can change it! It is possible to reverse the effects of what some of these organisations and people have done. Look into your local citizen science programs, get involved if you can! Citizen science is so important in the modern scientific climate, as scientists can't do it alone as there are too few of us to gather large (and accurate) quantities of data. The more people that take an interest in protecting the environment, the better.
Lovely idea, but... Most ordinary people are selfish and ignorant, with little real interest in nature, and the British Establishment is a self-protecting mechanism which has conned them into repeatingly voting against their own interests. It's the perfect storm. All supoosedly "green" Govt. initiatives are either box-ticking PR initiatives, or ways for further public money to be distributed to the already wealthy. This situation is very unlikely to change.
"The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give." - Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI "Of the Rent of Land"
No there are rights to certain areas enshrined in law but not listed and unless listed they are not protected so land owners are closing these byways up. Right t o roam and other orgs are trying to get people out to list them so they dont dissapear etc. @ProvinoProvetto
Paying the elite to rectifyy their malmanagment of the land and expecting them to spend that money on what they are paid to do.. without policing etc.? Paying the biggest tax dodgers, the least contributed to the economy is a crazy idea... public money should mean the asset becomes public property
We have a county council farm system surviving from more radical Labour govs last century too. There’s no reason massive death duties couldn’t quietly relieve the aristocracy of land cos we’ve done it before. And instead of selling it off to millionaire property investors as we have with post industrial land just take the old noble land into the county council system. The old tenants could even remain in their homes protecting rural communities and intergenerational tenancies but under new council standards for ecology.
I worked at an adventure park that was on a bit of very rare Welsh cold rainforest near Bangor. They had got permission to buy the land and made a big deal of its importance to birds, fungi, amphibians etc. They then built a small rollercoster in the middle of the woodland. Seemed to creep on thier mission. It went from preservation and paying customers enjoyong nature, to our crowd pulling rollercoaster only has its concrete support structure in the woodland below.
You hear stories sometimes that make you think there is a god and that he’s a comedy writer specialising in farce 😂 Try build an eco home as a small holder in Wales though and watch them cheerfully make you homeless
Good interview. No-one should own land. It is everyone's, including the animals, fish and fauna. The Norman's still own big parts of the Republic of Ireland and managed to keep their country estates despite the end of British rule. I think you'll find access to the best education and top jobs reserved for them regardless of their capabilities.
Wild flower meadows were lost because the post war govt pushed farmers to produce more and more cheap food, it wasn't done for profit. The fens were drained for the same reasons
Owning land is an illusion. We come from the land, and we return to it, we don't own it. We are in it and it is in us. I hope we can wake up collectively before it is finally too late.
“Get off this estate." "What for?" "Because it's mine." "Where did you get it?" "From my father." "Where did he get it?" "From his father." "And where did he get it?" "He fought for it." "Well, I'll fight you for it.”
@@Vroomfondle1066 Every farmer Ive talked to about it says that "there's nothing living in there, its too small and restrictive". But my research (and so much more supporting research) indicated that they are massive 'ecological highway systems'. So much fauna and flora live within hedgerows, especially birds and insects as well as fungi.
@@Oberon117 So True. Just because they look small, thay are viewed by Farmers as a nuisance, but like you said, Hedgerows are extremely important ecological highways. Badgers, Foxes, Stoats, Weasels, many species of mice and more than 50 species of Birds. Not forgetting Reptiles.
Farms are businesses. Farmers are business people, and the bottom line is their primary consideration. As with any other business stakeholders, farmers will do whatever they are able to, within the applicable legislation, to make the best return on their assets and investments. If farmers are "financially incentivised" (paid) to save hedgerows, hedgerows will be saved. It really is that simple.
@@davidpalk5010 Yep, pretty much. But the problem is that that money has to come from somewhere. But ultimately, scientists and farmers need to be working together, so that the environmental needs are met, as well as the financial needs of the farmers.
Tree felling was during the war, the Forestry Commission was then created to ensure a supply of timber. Landowners didn't fell woodlands, many of which were planted for shooting in the first place, it was govt policy
What on earth has the public sector ever done to give us the impression they can be trusted anymore than these private land owner. They'd all be falling over eachother to line their own pockets.
Given that large scale land ownership has been an unmitigated and extremely expensive disaster, the bar is set very low indeed for public land ownership. Shrubsole's suggestion is that land could be acquired with public funds and then placed in trust in the hands of 'public' bodies such as the county wildlife trusts, National Trust, RSPB, the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust, community/parish level stewardship, and so on, and indeed local authorities which includes national park authorities which own little to virtually zero land in our so-called national parks. Do I think these institutions would do a better job of restoring biodiversity, carbon draw down, public access, employment and education opportunities than private land owners - that will be unqualified yes.
LOL he literally sets out all the issues with private land owners - many of whom got their land through violence - and that's the best response you can come up with? Keep doffing your cap at your betters!
Very appropriate time in political history to bring this critical British environmental dilemma to the fore. I only wish that I could believe the Labour government were any more deep thinking and less self interested than the ousted Conservatives. We shall see.
Any serious republican movement here cannot only be abolishing the monarchy but the entire aristocracy, including taking back their land with no compensation
Great timing! This video popped up in my feed after a video from Mapperton Live regarding how they have over 3 million pounds of deferred maintenance on the manor house that they can't afford. The video was a fund raiser. I like beautiful old houses but I also question the system behind the manor house. I think it shows how much wealth had been accumulated by these families through exploitation and the fact these homes were not sustainable by and large as a regular business enterprise. At least not sustainable through 1,000 years of family ownership. This has all kinds of implications as to the impact of these homes.
The industrial farming that is now operated opposite to me in Cornwall is pretty horrifying. You hardly hear birds out there and the hedgrows are pushed back to their last vestiges.
Food insecurity is seen by the supermarkets as an opportunity to price gouge. There is also a failure to recognise that wilderness systems are a source of nutrient generation for agriculture, particularly when the small scale farmer has to deal with the pressure from financiers to meet loan repayments, requiring intensive use of every square metre...
This is an incredibly important issue and it needs thoroughy talking about and thinking through. When we talk about land owners we think about the very large land owners, rignt to roam, and inequality, and yes, this is one important aspect. As someone that bought a couple of acres of upland a couple of years ago, intending to re-diversify and restore. This is a long term project. The first thing you find out is that if you have less than 5 Hectares, you don't have the same the same development rights, not that I'm interested, but it's interesting. The second thing is that DEFRA grants for land restoration are tiny, so a small holder repairing 100m of stone hedge would get £27, which isn't worth applying for. Industrial sized projects may be worth applying for, favouring larger owners. The next thing you see is that some (even small) landowners are ripping out stone hedges, stands of trees, and using their land for industrial dumping at such a scale that any remedial work by other land owners doesn't even scratch the surface. I believe that when you own land (even a small garden) you have a responsibility to protect its historic state, so it grates to see this lack of respect for the land. We've been warmly welcoming people on to the footpaths that cross our land and maintaining the footpath, improving signage and making sure others can enjoy the land (the local authority long ago stopped helping footpath repair due to lack of funds), whilst a voluntary group maintains an important archaeological site next door. There is no shortage of good will, but almost not support for good works, whilst those damaging the environment face no sanctions. We need a real rethink.
How come the richest borough in London pays the least council tax .Its because the richest pay the least as my mum used to say the poor look after the poor.
It is actually because it is a more efficient local council. Their past council leaders have been very open about how they cut costs and encouraged other councils to do the same. They tackled a multiplicity of waste, right down to the council turning out to spend hundreds of thousands on bottled water.
I grew up on moorland in Cornwall that is now an sssi. In the 60s and 70s it was rented as farm land, covered with so much life especially birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals. On many days of the year the birds and insects would be humming and full of song, almost deafening. Life would be moving everywhere. Now it is controlled by so called natural england and the national trust and you hardly hear the song of a bird or the hum of a bee and to see any form of life is rare. It's so sad. The only interest appears to be in tourism and money and the natural/nature aspects of the land is second fiddle. They burn moorland when small mammals and reptiles are hibernating and grub out swathes of blackthorn and hawthorne , nature's bird food. They also drive tracked heavy machines across heath grubbing out wide tracks to drive their vehicles on land that has never seen such machines.
I live near the village of Naseby, and i'm continually astonished by the number of royalits i encounter around here. Shoots, fox hunts and other forms of animal abuse abound, yet ìt continues here.
I'd be astonished if many people even know about the Battle of Naseby. I was never taught about the Civil War in school, I've never seen a historical drama set in that period. I'm half-convinced the history is supressed from above.
You shouldn’t be. You’re in that deep east midland rural heartland. I’m the same here in the Langtons just over into Leicestershire. There’s belt from north of the Vale of Belvoir down to Warwickshire engulfing us both which is stuffed with the jodhpur, pastel pink chino, gilet, and loafer wearing brigade. You must know this. Think of the schools at Oundle/Uppingham/Oakham. Plus you lot over the boarder have some of the richest estates in the country at rockingham and burghley. Our CLP had like 30 active members last i looked in and Harborough famously gave the Jarrow March the very worst welcome in the entire country
Although obviously historically we were also a heartland of the Quakers and other religious and political radicals so it’s shifted a lot since the 1600s or even the 1800s
No doubt these rich landowners with their tenanted farms were gathered in their droves at the protest about IHT to show their righteous indignancy at the "threat to family farms"
What we don't want is state having more control. I'm in favour of capping how many resources any single person can have. Accumulate all the money you like, but you can't hog all the resources. Private ownership must be protected though - without it we become slaves.
All good stuff. Big big tasks ahead then. I live in Herefordshire, & the attack on nature never stops. Must be positive so good luck & take care. Best wishes. Al .
I have a problem with Inheritance Tax on large estates. What happens if the inheritance tax cannot be paid by the profitability of the estate? If a stately home and grounds needs to be sold to pay the inheritance tax, who's going to be able to afford it? I am worried that these estates will ultimately end up in the hands of multinational corporations, or Russian and Chinese oligarchs! To avoid this, perhaps the inheritance tax could be paid as a sharehold of the estate, to be owned by the government, for the public good. That way the public would have its say in how the estate is managed, for ecological good, right-to-roam, organic farming etc.
The public good nowadays would remove the deer, horses and sheep and cover the land with wind and solar farms. No thank you. I like the way the aristocracy pass on their knowledge of land management down the generations, send their children to Agricultural College and and produce the country houses and scenery that we love. I notice that Golf Courses were not discussed in the first half by which time I gave up listening due to the Global Warming / Carbon propaganda!!.
@@tumbleweeduk7479 That's simply excusing the landed gentry! The public good could be anything, but definitely isn't grouse shooting and moorland burning. For myself it would be regenerative agriculture and right to roam. Solar panels should be on rooves before green land.
It’s a catastrophe when a big house looses its old family in many ways. My gran lived through it. A Saudi family bought it as a holiday home, closed off all community access to the park, stopped donating to the church which meant the parish could no longer afford a vicar, and sold off most of the tenanted houses destroying a few lives in the process. As of two years ago when we buried her they’d got to the point of putting beware of the dog posters up and fencing off the churchyard which previously had a clean view of the park. Truly soul destroying to see. That said I agree the status quo isn’t good either. Some kind of collaboration between the ministry for agriculture and fisheries, the county council farms, the mod, and the old families estates seems most logical to me. Could have been discussed with a Corbyn Labour gov but I’m not confident about the current lot. They seem too much like spivs to care enough. Also the county council farms have been selling off lots to cope with austerity which is another tragedy for wannabe young agriculturalists
There is no ingeritance tax on businesses. An estate is usually an agricultural business, so inheritance tax on an entire estate is low - usually something like a 10% loss per generation. But, HMRC will accept heritage gifts in lieu of tax. Therefore much of the 10% potential loss can be avoided by gifting a painting or two, for example, to the nation. This is a tax loophole for the ultra-wealthy, and how estates have remained intact through the last few generations during the period where ineritance tax has been in place. Why should these estates not be broken up? Why should anyone have a birthright to abject wealth, and why should the wealthy be able to avoid their due contribution to the wider social fund with such impunity? Our system of land ownership is obviously unjust.
@@basilmagnanimous7011 Doesn't sound simple to me. Some Scandinavian countries have very little private land ownership, with the majority belonging to the state. Imagine a Govt. making all decisions besed primarily on long-term sustainability, and owning all the land, and you're well on the way to Utopia. Obviously, short-term commercial interests always prevail and this will never happen, but it's good to have dreams...
Why didnt the BBC get Guy to talk sense when all the Farmers inheritence tax mayhem erupted on the news with all the Clarkson's devious media statements
Can you do something on the reduction of farming tenancy places? Specifically in County Council farms arising from some sales during austerity? Finding a place to farm is so hard now, mostly because of the estates selling up but it’s not helped by the reduction of the already limited council farm places
Very illuminating discussion! I will buy two copies of the book for our house and for my mum. The only thing that I didn't hear was an Ask for the Labour gobernment of the next five years. How will they legislate for nature and against practices such as grouse shooting? How will they challenge the current land ownership situation? Thanks as ever 😊
Nature isn't a vote winner - and the landowners are at the heart of Govt to skew all the rules to their own advantage. The vast majority of voters don't care enough for nature to be a political issue - and real environmentalism (rather than the current box-ticking PR) is at odds with the "growth economy" which all parties tell us is absolutely essential. Anyone can start at home by seriously minimising their consumption and going vegan. Almost nobody actually does this. They all want a weekend in New York for Christmas shopping, fast food via UberEats, a £7K hot tub on the patio and a brand new car every three years. The selfish and willfully ignorant majority will be the masters of their own demise. A knighthood is only ever awarded for dutifully serving the interests of the Establishment, and the freebies scandal exposes where the greatest political influence really lies. Starmer will do no better for the environment than the last lot of crooks and liars. The Establishment runs the show, with politics as a peeling veneer of supposed democracy.
Recently read a brilliant book by Nick Hayes called 'The Book of Trespass ordinary people kicked off the land that sustained them, hunti g animals to feed themselves became 'poaching' which was illegal....A good read,
We can't feed 80,000,000 people with hunting or arable subsistence farming. The root cause of all environmental problems is over-population. Nature was once our life support system. The economy has taken nature's place as the force which sustains us.
At first I thought this was anecdotal… Every summer I drive through France. The front of my car is caked in insect matter. That never happens in the UK anymore. And also the amount of butterflies is visibly different. What are they doing differently other than not having the 1% owning all their land?
We are masters of our own demise. Nature is a balanced system. Our complete domination of it will be temporary. When that system finally collapses, so will the human population. There will be a "great reset" in the near future. There will be no recovery of nature without this happening.
This is a very complex subject. So much damage has been done and there is absolutely no way these big, rich landed gentry landowners are suddently going to hand the land back to the peasants. Many people are keen to grow and supply food organically, or at least more naturally , without the use of damaging pesticides, produced on small farms not huge industrialized conglomerate farms, but the supermarkets squeeze the life out of most small growers leaving only room for the Duchy of Cornwall (that's our 'organic loving' king's outfit) and intensive growers. It's nice to have the conversation but I fear its too late. England's green and pleasant land is being and has been decimated by greed and this govt with its deranged plans for more solar farms and wind farms, plus loosening of planning laws.. spells even more disaster. As for the Victorians.they invented some good things but blasting game birds in their thousands out of the sky and killing of indigenous wild life of all kinds was not one of them,.
On Guy’s point about more people having an awareness of and appreciation for nature after lockdown. That’s me precisely, used to hate the idea of gardening, but started it in lockdown as I had to spend time in my garden. We’ve now moved house and I have put in a greenhouse to grow veg and revamped the garden.
There is an urgent need to develop linked strategies in all the major areas of our lives - farming, housing, employment and industry, health and social care to name a few. The link has to be basic human values: the valuing and respect of all people and the contribution they can make to the common good. Wishful thinking perhaps but nonetheless a goal to aim for even if we don't achieve it all.
Really interesting topic, and great interview. Anyone interested in the bit about the fens should go to the Oliver Cromwell museum in Ely - he was the MP for the area at the time (of the draining) and campaign for compensation for the fenlanders
Only big land owners have permitted development in the countryside. Everyone else can barely do anything and you certainly can't build houses in the countryside which is why we have a housing crisis in rural areas and increasingly less farms as they are turned into air bnbs or little estates for the wealthy folk from London or wherever. Local people have no chance of being able to own a house.
I don't think most humans are very strong in the class department sadly. I come from Poland, which suffered greatly due to egregiously greedy and incompetent elites...yet all our official history lauds them as "best poland had to offer". All we preserve are lavish palaces - which usually presided over crushing poverty in surrounding lands. Poland had old school feudalism going long after other countries in Europe started developing some early form of rights for its populace
Salmon has declined through issues in the Atlantic and netting stations at the mouth of the rivers. In catchments sensitive farming areas landowners have to try to stop agric run off while the government are asking them to produce cheap food, to gain subsides. Water companies are the issue.
We also pay the aviation industry to pollute...supported by demand from our post-colonial elite of frequent flyers that just have to have keep on with their little trips with no apparent awareness of their privilege. Most people in this country hardly fly at all. 80% of the world don't fly at all. Imagine if they did??
Mob grazing can increase stock density whilst increasing biodiversity (Fir farm in Gloucestershire). This also reduced their vet bills and increased carbon sequestration.
And grouse go to the game dealer and are very cheap 6 quid a brace ,pheasants 2 quid a brace ,the birds are worth next to nothing unless they are being shot at
Old saying: up goes a guinea, bang goes sixpence, down comes half-a-crown. Guinea being the cost of raising a pheasant, sixpence the cost of a cartridge, Half a crown what the butcher will pay for the carcass. The remaining eighteen shillings was the value of the rich mans sport.
We lost wildflower meadows when horses stopped being used for transport. Meadows must be either grazed or cut for hay to not turn into woodland/scrub. Most farmers use silage instead of traditional hay now which is cut to often for flowers to establish. Traditional hay meadows aren't ploughed or seeded, just cut once or twice a year and maybe grazed over winter. Horses are still fed hay. We need more traditionally kept horses and ruminants if we want wildflowers back on a large scale.
Those opening comments hit me hard here in Canada. Watching the forests I spent hours alone in as a child get cut down for housing is like getting a piece of your soul ripped out. I also agree that while tackling climate change is important, the destruction of ecosystems "the web of life itself" is always overlooked in favor of GDP growth, and I feel mad and powerless.
When all our politicians talk about investment, this is exactly what they mean. Foreign or elite owned land. And labour are no different at encouraging it.
Responsible land ownership works well at Parish council levels borough and county councils,county conservation bodies.These organisations should recive the 9billion in payouts because they are actively maintaining SSSi and nature reserves.
You folks need to look at the history of England in Ireland to understand how land and wealth was appropriated. And the first slaves in the Caribbean were Irish sent there
burning heather above ground: - releases carbon into the atmosphere in and of itself - removes vegetation, preventing new peat from accumulating, turning the bog from a carbon sink to a carbon source - prevents ecological succession from taking place (this is the purpose of these burns!), thereby preventing the possibility of more carbon sequestration by woodlands - prevents the growth of tree roots which help to aggregate and bind the soil together, contributing to the erosion of the peat - because fewer trees are present to cycle water back into the atmosphere by evapotranspiration, and the soil is looser and more permeable, contributes to flooding during heavy rainfall - turns areas of land which have the potential to develop into diverse habitats into effectively monocultures, disrupting carbon and nutrient cycling through the food web. Everything in an ecosystem is delicately interconnected. You can't remove one part of the ecosystem (e.g. surface vegetation) without disrupting the whole system.
When relatives of mine trained as nurses in the big London hospitals in the 1930s pre-NHS, rich donors used to send the game they shot on their estates to the hospitals for patients and staff to eat. Landowners today would be charging top price.
@@patcampton7163 Absolutely true. They make a "stink pit" and then shoot the animals and birds which come for the carrion. It's not legal to sell food with lead shot in it. A few birds are eaten by participants and locals but the majority are wasted. It's a commercial "sport" and not commercial poultry farming. If you buy pheasant flesh at a shop, it didn't originate from a game shoot.
Wheat and barley grown to feed farmed animals uses 40% of the UK's arable land area. Time to move away from animal agriculture, use the land to grow food for us directly, and repurpose non productive land for vertical farming, barn mushroom farming, and rewilding. But the subsidies need to change to make all this possible, and nothing will change if we keep eating so much meat and dairy.
@@crapisniceNo this comment just proves that how out of touch the general public are with what is actually happening in agriculture, the last Tory government in England stopped all subsidies for grain production and you didn’t even know it.
@@CharlesYeo-qs6nb the fact remains that animal agriculture is incredibly destructive (air and water pollution) and has an insatiable appetite for water, land and crops that are best fed to humans directly. This is even before considering the toll on the climate and human health.
@@MoniqueRBuckner When people like you spread your information that is all fabricated to make you life choices acceptable don’t bother me thanks. One example water consumption is fabricated by calculating all the rainfall that lands on grassland for meat production when 85% of that water goes into rivers lakes and reservoirs, and is not needed for grass production and the land is in grass to stop erosion.
Clarkson's Farm is really good. At the end of every season, he explains how difficult it is to be a Farmer because they lose so much money every year. He does campaign and speak to people in government.
You think so? I feel as though it’s a wealthy city boy choosing to swan into a profession that’s my birthright because he fancies it. Meanwhile I, and thousands and thousands like me, can’t begin to afford to continue our family industry since our farms were sold from under us by the big houses in the last century. Even just living in the villages we used to farm is a luxury for city retirees now
Also it heavily relies on the whole “look at the funny West Country lad get confused and talk plainly” trope. You could rip it to shreds on a critical class analysis
Also these accolades from Aaron in the beginning are just so heartwarming to be honest. I always knew you were a sweetheart. Everyone else is just too thick to see it.
Materialists and hypocrites ran over Native Americans and Chief Seattle told them they had no future because they were ruining the environment and their habits and ways were destructive because they did not know what sacred living is.He said when your troubles go over your heads you can ask us and we will try to help.
Well,since COVID numerous fires at food processing plants and other "accidents" have made actual store cupboard basic foodstuffs stupidly expensive in the USA. The price for 6 eggs in USA does not compare with the price in Britain or Europe. The supposed high output efficient USA farming our farmers were urged by political administrations to follow us now bust and broken. That Chief Seattle speech was written in 1970 by a white academic at a USA university called Ted.
@@_S_I_ Our entire way of life is unsustainable - every aspect of it. The global population has doubled in the last fifty years. That's not sustainable. The growth economy is not sustainable. We in the "developed north" enjoy abject wealth compared to our recent ancestors and those in undeveloped nations, but this is all due to a four hundred year blip in history enabled exclusively by fossil fuel wealth. "Peak civilisation" came in about 1994 in this country. The developed world is now on the slide. In the future we will be returned, against our will and probably by destructive and chaotic means, to agrarian subsistence.
@@PJH13 American agriculture is not a success story. It is a story of grotesque pollution of the land and sea (by agricultural run-off) and irrigation of many regions with groundwater which is dwindling.
They already are. Just look on wiki at the Dukedoms and Earldoms and Baronetcies. Then look at the current holders of those titles and you’ve already found about 70% of the 1%
This not easy to build a house on rural land as the law requirements is so high, especially you need to access the roads. But as outside-the-grid technologies are more available (solar, starlinks). Its time to find some way to ease those laws or help the public to build more house in rural areas. e.g. Gave them subsidies or loose some restriction so they can explore more lands.
When I was a young child, I met a man with a shotgun in the country and I asked him why he had a gun. He replied that he is a Gamekeeper. I asked him what a Gamekeeper does. He told me he killed all of the vermin. I asked him what is vermin. He said it is Foxes, Badgers, Stoats, Weasels, Rats, Hen Harriers, Hawks, Eagles and Falcons. I was shocked and asked him what animals are left. He replied : Pheasant, Partridges and Grouse and the Master shoots them.
Sounds like he was far more skilled than his master
That sums it up exactly- how sad
Appalling isn’t it?
Sure
nice try to scripted
We bought a bungalow with an overgrown unloved 2.5 acre field attached. Now, after over a decade of hard work I am proud to say it is a woodland with over 3000 native trees. It is my paradise.
I live in the city and have a large garden. Some neighbours think it's a partly overgrown wilderness, but actually I have planted Hazel, Blackthorn , Hawthorn, Buckthorn, Rowan and a spindle. It's an understory under the neighbours trees , sycamores and poplar, which shade my garden on the south border. I figure when the big trees reach the end of their life , there will be a small wood to replace them. I live in a conservation area so I'm hoping the trees will reach a girth so they cant be chopped down willy nilly before I die or have to give up the garden. It's one of the things I'm trying to do to support diversity and wildlife.
Your land should now be given to the people to roam freely, trample the saplings you planted, litter freely, build camp fires and do as they wish. You should also be punished and pay more tax for owning land. At least this is what the Government want !!
@jamesashford9197 yes, that's the thing. 90% of people don't give a stuff about how to use the free to roam land without trashing it, leaving litter, etc. Covid taught us that.
Brilliant
@@michelleelsom6827 It's more to do with peoples disconnect from the land, we live rootless lives and its causing sickness upon society and the land. Maybe bringing people back to the land will help to grow a reverence for nature in society instead of seeing people as a nuisance (the littering and what not is a psychological expression), for we are all earths children and maybe the pollution and destruction of the earth is actually the earths expression on a deeper level.
You guys are great. I love Novara Media. You talk about things that matter, and you are honest and passionate about them. Thank you 🙏
Really pisses me off when people say that landowners know what is best for their land. Being a landowner does not automatically mean you know how to use land in a good way. If you're a gamekeeper your priority isn't biodiversity but game shooting; if you're a farmer your priority isn't biodiversity it's food production; if you're Forestry England your priority isn't biodiversity it's timber production. If you own a golf course your priority isn't biodiversity it is profit.
As an organic FARMER I need to make a profit ,however I am an organic farmer because I believe in its principles and not because it will make me more money.
"How can wealth persuade poverty to use its politican freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Consertive politics in the 20th century." Aneurin Bevan.
That is the purpose of liberalism as a system
Put like that, it is obvious.
Yet phrased in other ways (or even this way in the presence of certain people), one gets called a conspiracy theorist.
I've listened to all this and you're right it's mind blowing.
I can't remember when I have previously heard two people espouse the communist theory without considering the requirement of a dictator and to look at the record of communism.
I am also fascinated by the sheer lack of actual knowledge, the distortion of realism and the serial lies.
If it wasn't so alarming it would be hilarious
Conservative or Tory
Communists have done more damage, Aral sea? Etc.
This is an excellent discussion about land and land use in the UK. A very important discussion.
I'm from the North of Scotland, and to be fair, the grouse and deer don't get wasted, they get sold by the estate to game butchers. I actually eat a lot of game as I'd rather eat meat that lived wild and free than animals that were cruelly, pollutingly, industrially farmed. But we absolutely need land reform, estates should be managed by the communities they serve and practices of murdering so called 'pest' species need to be stopped. I'm also in favour of managed upland forests and crofting in larger numbers onces again.
@@CW-bw7pv There will always be game in responsibly managed land, the nature of it depends on our decisions in land management. You get Grouse are native to Northern Britain, right? There will be less with less moorland, but they will still exist in upland areas and there will be other species instead/in addition. I doubt we will bother with chicken from Brazil, their farming standards are too low. As it happens I do sometimes eat poultry, but only from my friend's farm where I know they are 100% free range, scratting about and living pretty unrestricted overall.
Grouse hunting is terrible for nature
I live near Inverness and I've never seen game for sale up here
@@zoebenefer6149 Grouse *farming* is terrible for nature (ie - artificially keeping too much land as moor and selling good grain to feed and fatten an excessively large Grouse population in order to let a bunch of millionaires and billionaires loose on the hills with shotguns.)
@@philjameson292 really? I mean, it doesn't end up in the supermarkets. You need to go to a game butcher.
So interesting. I’m definitely getting your book. The Lie of the Land. I hope so much change will come to change the way the land is used today.
Thanks for this. Rural affairs are a massive Novara Media blind spot. The ignorance on the subject displayed by many of your hosts is plain to see (this comes from a place of love and respect for what you guys do). I'd like to see you spend more time on it, or get a rural correspondent.
Whilst the left media hyper focus on parliamentary politics, a very visible political war is being held in the countryside, it's about time it got the coverage it deserves.
Guy Shrubsole is exactly the type of person we need in the struggle against disinterested and exploitative land owners, is right lad!!!
Most land will end up in the hands of people like blackrock. Its the naive left- ultracapitalist pact as usual.
Disinterested or uninterested?
The recent revolt by "farmers" over inheritence tax is a classic example of 1. the govt failing to get to the heart of a problem 2. the way the NFU is controlled by large landowners. 3. The ignorance of the general public fed on countryside myths
So Glad to see this spoken out loud. I've been banging on about the moorlands and bio desert and re-wilding for my entire life. Finally it sees daylight. Thank you Novara.
Why are big finnancial benefits paid to these old aristocratic landowners when they already hold so much wealth? Why are these benefits not studied and discussed, in depth, [ it is kept pretty quiet] the same way that welfare benefits that cover a basic lifestyle, are on podcasts?Ultimately the giving of benefits has been turned upside down. It is shameful that rich landowners receive benefits. It is dreadful that kids go hungry in the UK due to our governments choice to pay poverty welfare rates, often while the rich Landowners take extortionate rents from the same poorest .Does this sound just or logical?
Simply because the aristocracy is near to the top of the British Establishment. The British Establishment is a highly complex, yet extremely effective, mechanism by which the wealthy and powerful retain wealth and power. The British Establishment is a conspiracy fact rather than a conspiracy theory.
Do you really need to ask?
Never been a democratic country, more of a fuedle system, that's the big lie
@@Vince-l4k We're actually officially a constitutional monarchy. No pretence at being democratic at all.
@@davidpalk5010 😂clueless. Every country that isn't a dump and has it's sh*t together has this hierarchy. Without it, foreign agents snake their way in and destroy from within. Like what's happening currently en masse.... you think the UK is the only one to protect its own elite? All I ever read on YT comments even remotely associated with any western country or country associated with western values etc is propaganda like this. Every. Single. Video. It's becoming obvious to everyone that isn't a vegetable or a child. Guess that's exactly your target audience.
Guess sending billions to foreign countries and randoms that nobody knows about is the answer though eh 👍 enjoy socialism if it comes. It's going to be epic, for almost nobody.
Landowners have always been at the heart of Establishment and Govt in this country. They were and still are the legislature. That's why there are huge economic and planning advantages for people with land. Why do you think Jeremy Clarkson spent £10M of his hard-earned fortune on a farm which supposedly produces absolutely no return on that investment? He certainly didn't do it for the good of nature...
And i thought it was because he liked the life style.
You think clarkson wanted to be apart of the legislature? Give your head a wobble. He detests the legislature. If you actually watched his series you'd know. But, nah, you'd rather just judge someone with more money then you. Typical socialist.
@firstnamelastname-uq9hr He does. have you actually watched the series or just judging based on other people's opinions?
@@craigjones4121 Craig, it's TV. It's not real. You, and many others, have been had. It may be presented as real - just inept, bumbling, wealthy Clarkson and clever, sensible, underpaid Kaleb, in an endearing and comical (totally staged!) relationship, doing entertaining country things to engage dozing sofa dwellers with pizza boxes in their laps. But, it's actually a broadcast production with a large crew, plans, scripts, budgets, schedules, deadlines, and a major commercial client to satisfy. It's fake. Clarkson could easily have got "the lifestyle" with a £1M ten acre farm, so why "waste" an additional £9M on a thousand acres if not for reason of financial advantage? Clarkson may play the fool, but he's far from stupid. Anyhow, if Clarkson were to expire next January, and the farm were to be passed down through his family, it would then (since the budget) be due around £2M inheritance tax. Unexpectedly, he's rather cross about the sudden loss of that particular longstanding tax break for the rich. It remains a tax break though, as the tax is still discounted by 50%. The IHT bill on that farm should really be about £4M. The rich can therefore continue to use land ownership to avoid their fair share of tax.
Just about to complete my Masters in Environmental Management and Monitoring, I also have my BSc in Biology, focusing primarily on ecology. The current tone of each lecture (especially ecological ones) is highly negative in relation to the current state of the UK's environment; there are too many organisations disregarding the rules, either by incompetence or corruption. But the thing is, we can change it! It is possible to reverse the effects of what some of these organisations and people have done.
Look into your local citizen science programs, get involved if you can! Citizen science is so important in the modern scientific climate, as scientists can't do it alone as there are too few of us to gather large (and accurate) quantities of data. The more people that take an interest in protecting the environment, the better.
Lovely idea, but... Most ordinary people are selfish and ignorant, with little real interest in nature, and the British Establishment is a self-protecting mechanism which has conned them into repeatingly voting against their own interests. It's the perfect storm. All supoosedly "green" Govt. initiatives are either box-ticking PR initiatives, or ways for further public money to be distributed to the already wealthy. This situation is very unlikely to change.
"The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give." - Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI "Of the Rent of Land"
In Scotland 20 % of the people own 80 % of the lands. And 80% of the wealthy 20% are not even Scottish.
Support the Right to Roam campaign!
Is It iro nic
No
No there are rights to certain areas enshrined in law but not listed and unless listed they are not protected so land owners are closing these byways up. Right t o roam and other orgs are trying to get people out to list them so they dont dissapear etc. @ProvinoProvetto
I think anyway
They're trying to register all the rights of way before its too late
This guest does a fine job of putting a calm and charming face on a very depressing subject
Bunch of Shills for the Elite,the pretty face to lure us into tyranny.
Paying the elite to rectifyy their malmanagment of the land and expecting them to spend that money on what they are paid to do.. without policing etc.? Paying the biggest tax dodgers, the least contributed to the economy is a crazy idea... public money should mean the asset becomes public property
We have a county council farm system surviving from more radical Labour govs last century too. There’s no reason massive death duties couldn’t quietly relieve the aristocracy of land cos we’ve done it before. And instead of selling it off to millionaire property investors as we have with post industrial land just take the old noble land into the county council system. The old tenants could even remain in their homes protecting rural communities and intergenerational tenancies but under new council standards for ecology.
I worked at an adventure park that was on a bit of very rare Welsh cold rainforest near Bangor. They had got permission to buy the land and made a big deal of its importance to birds, fungi, amphibians etc. They then built a small rollercoster in the middle of the woodland. Seemed to creep on thier mission. It went from preservation and paying customers enjoyong nature, to our crowd pulling rollercoaster only has its concrete support structure in the woodland below.
You hear stories sometimes that make you think there is a god and that he’s a comedy writer specialising in farce 😂 Try build an eco home as a small holder in Wales though and watch them cheerfully make you homeless
Good interview. No-one should own land. It is everyone's, including the animals, fish and fauna. The Norman's still own big parts of the Republic of Ireland and managed to keep their country estates despite the end of British rule. I think you'll find access to the best education and top jobs reserved for them regardless of their capabilities.
The big divide between rich and poor is unfortunately very much alive and kicking in Kier Starmer’s Labour Party.
They hate us,da poor people.
yes ,and they have had nearly 3 months to put it right.
😂@@jonathanwhite460
Wild flower meadows were lost because the post war govt pushed farmers to produce more and more cheap food, it wasn't done for profit. The fens were drained for the same reasons
Yes, and way less hay meadows once horses were replaced by cars.
Owning land is an illusion. We come from the land, and we return to it, we don't own it. We are in it and it is in us. I hope we can wake up collectively before it is finally too late.
tell that to the people the died in Norman invasion. Or the palestinians watching their literal homes being occupied by settlers
@@ince55ant Both are a problem rooted in the ideology of landownership.
1000 years, and one Brit gets it. From a Maori facing worse issues than this in NZ. From the same behaviour.
“Get off this estate."
"What for?"
"Because it's mine."
"Where did you get it?"
"From my father."
"Where did he get it?"
"From his father."
"And where did he get it?"
"He fought for it."
"Well, I'll fight you for it.”
America as a country would have to be a dodo before we would even entertain the idea of abolishing land ownership, where ownership is 9/10 of the law.
Back in the early 1980s,a large amount of Hedgerows were cut down by farmers to get an extra yard corridor to grow. Hedgerows are so very important.
@@Vroomfondle1066 Every farmer Ive talked to about it says that "there's nothing living in there, its too small and restrictive". But my research (and so much more supporting research) indicated that they are massive 'ecological highway systems'. So much fauna and flora live within hedgerows, especially birds and insects as well as fungi.
@Vroomfondle1066 cause you know, farmers are ecologists too. 😂
@@Oberon117 So True. Just because they look small, thay are viewed by Farmers as a nuisance, but like you said, Hedgerows are extremely important ecological highways. Badgers, Foxes, Stoats, Weasels, many species of mice and more than 50 species of Birds. Not forgetting Reptiles.
Farms are businesses. Farmers are business people, and the bottom line is their primary consideration. As with any other business stakeholders, farmers will do whatever they are able to, within the applicable legislation, to make the best return on their assets and investments. If farmers are "financially incentivised" (paid) to save hedgerows, hedgerows will be saved. It really is that simple.
@@davidpalk5010 Yep, pretty much. But the problem is that that money has to come from somewhere. But ultimately, scientists and farmers need to be working together, so that the environmental needs are met, as well as the financial needs of the farmers.
Tree felling was during the war, the Forestry Commission was then created to ensure a supply of timber. Landowners didn't fell woodlands, many of which were planted for shooting in the first place, it was govt policy
So some Woodlands not felled is a good idea?
What on earth has the public sector ever done to give us the impression they can be trusted anymore than these private land owner. They'd all be falling over eachother to line their own pockets.
They can't be much worse than greedy land owners. With poliitical will and accountability it could be done.
Given that large scale land ownership has been an unmitigated and extremely expensive disaster, the bar is set very low indeed for public land ownership. Shrubsole's suggestion is that land could be acquired with public funds and then placed in trust in the hands of 'public' bodies such as the county wildlife trusts, National Trust, RSPB, the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust, community/parish level stewardship, and so on, and indeed local authorities which includes national park authorities which own little to virtually zero land in our so-called national parks.
Do I think these institutions would do a better job of restoring biodiversity, carbon draw down, public access, employment and education opportunities than private land owners - that will be unqualified yes.
LOL he literally sets out all the issues with private land owners - many of whom got their land through violence - and that's the best response you can come up with? Keep doffing your cap at your betters!
@@patcampton7163Wow, your ignorance 😂
@@patcampton7163This is Humanity we’re talking about here
Thanks
Very appropriate time in political history to bring this critical British environmental dilemma to the fore. I only wish that I could believe the Labour government were any more deep thinking and less self interested than the ousted Conservatives. We shall see.
Excellent interview, Guy is very knowledgeable, well informed and likeable!
Any serious republican movement here cannot only be abolishing the monarchy but the entire aristocracy, including taking back their land with no compensation
William the Conqueror is one of my many ancestors. Probably yours too,sadly.
Get rid of the aristocracy so Bill Gates and Blackrock can get their hands on the land. Great.
@@janebaker966 great, then we’re entitled to reside at Blenheim then
@janebaker966 doubt so in my case
"Taking back" we've never owned it...
Great timing! This video popped up in my feed after a video from Mapperton Live regarding how they have over 3 million pounds of deferred maintenance on the manor house that they can't afford. The video was a fund raiser. I like beautiful old houses but I also question the system behind the manor house. I think it shows how much wealth had been accumulated by these families through exploitation and the fact these homes were not sustainable by and large as a regular business enterprise. At least not sustainable through 1,000 years of family ownership. This has all kinds of implications as to the impact of these homes.
I like the husband in that. He’s sweet. But as interesting as the house tours she gives are I find her deeply irritating at some level
Also they’re relatively poor compared to some of the biggest houses. They lost their original estate in Cambridgeshire
The industrial farming that is now operated opposite to me in Cornwall is pretty horrifying. You hardly hear birds out there and the hedgrows are pushed back to their last vestiges.
Food insecurity is seen by the supermarkets as an opportunity to price gouge.
There is also a failure to recognise that wilderness systems are a source of nutrient generation for agriculture, particularly when the small scale farmer has to deal with the pressure from financiers to meet loan repayments, requiring intensive use of every square metre...
This is an incredibly important issue and it needs thoroughy talking about and thinking through. When we talk about land owners we think about the very large land owners, rignt to roam, and inequality, and yes, this is one important aspect. As someone that bought a couple of acres of upland a couple of years ago, intending to re-diversify and restore. This is a long term project.
The first thing you find out is that if you have less than 5 Hectares, you don't have the same the same development rights, not that I'm interested, but it's interesting. The second thing is that DEFRA grants for land restoration are tiny, so a small holder repairing 100m of stone hedge would get £27, which isn't worth applying for. Industrial sized projects may be worth applying for, favouring larger owners. The next thing you see is that some (even small) landowners are ripping out stone hedges, stands of trees, and using their land for industrial dumping at such a scale that any remedial work by other land owners doesn't even scratch the surface. I believe that when you own land (even a small garden) you have a responsibility to protect its historic state, so it grates to see this lack of respect for the land.
We've been warmly welcoming people on to the footpaths that cross our land and maintaining the footpath, improving signage and making sure others can enjoy the land (the local authority long ago stopped helping footpath repair due to lack of funds), whilst a voluntary group maintains an important archaeological site next door. There is no shortage of good will, but almost not support for good works, whilst those damaging the environment face no sanctions. We need a real rethink.
How come the richest borough in London pays the least council tax .Its because the richest pay the least as my mum used to say the poor look after the poor.
It is actually because it is a more efficient local council. Their past council leaders have been very open about how they cut costs and encouraged other councils to do the same.
They tackled a multiplicity of waste, right down to the council turning out to spend hundreds of thousands on bottled water.
I grew up on moorland in Cornwall that is now an sssi. In the 60s and 70s it was rented as farm land, covered with so much life especially birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals. On many days of the year the birds and insects would be humming and full of song, almost deafening. Life would be moving everywhere.
Now it is controlled by so called natural england and the national trust and you hardly hear the song of a bird or the hum of a bee and to see any form of life is rare. It's so sad. The only interest appears to be in tourism and money and the natural/nature aspects of the land is second fiddle. They burn moorland when small mammals and reptiles are hibernating and grub out swathes of blackthorn and hawthorne , nature's bird food. They also drive tracked heavy machines across heath grubbing out wide tracks to drive their vehicles on land that has never seen such machines.
I live near the village of Naseby, and i'm continually astonished by the number of royalits i encounter around here. Shoots, fox hunts and other forms of animal abuse abound, yet ìt continues here.
I'd be astonished if many people even know about the Battle of Naseby. I was never taught about the Civil War in school, I've never seen a historical drama set in that period. I'm half-convinced the history is supressed from above.
You shouldn’t be. You’re in that deep east midland rural heartland. I’m the same here in the Langtons just over into Leicestershire. There’s belt from north of the Vale of Belvoir down to Warwickshire engulfing us both which is stuffed with the jodhpur, pastel pink chino, gilet, and loafer wearing brigade. You must know this. Think of the schools at Oundle/Uppingham/Oakham. Plus you lot over the boarder have some of the richest estates in the country at rockingham and burghley. Our CLP had like 30 active members last i looked in and Harborough famously gave the Jarrow March the very worst welcome in the entire country
Although obviously historically we were also a heartland of the Quakers and other religious and political radicals so it’s shifted a lot since the 1600s or even the 1800s
So it seems more aches of land are devoted to grouse farming then to housing in the uk.
No doubt these rich landowners with their tenanted farms were gathered in their droves at the protest about IHT to show their righteous indignancy at the "threat to family farms"
Indeed, and I saw one example on the news - Farage in his smartly-dressed-farmer uniform. Apparently he owns land worth £3m.
Thank yo, Novara Media for real journalism, unlike the mainstream vegetable journalism
What we don't want is state having more control. I'm in favour of capping how many resources any single person can have. Accumulate all the money you like, but you can't hog all the resources. Private ownership must be protected though - without it we become slaves.
Great guest. Such a vital and important subject.
All good stuff. Big big tasks ahead then. I live in Herefordshire, & the attack on nature never stops. Must be positive so good luck & take care. Best wishes. Al .
The capitalist doesn't see a tree, he sees timber; he doesn't see a human being (or an animal), he sees a dollar bill in transit.
I love Downstream. It reminds me of the BBC in the 60s. I'm a pensioner and I've supported Novara for some time.
I have a problem with Inheritance Tax on large estates. What happens if the inheritance tax cannot be paid by the profitability of the estate? If a stately home and grounds needs to be sold to pay the inheritance tax, who's going to be able to afford it? I am worried that these estates will ultimately end up in the hands of multinational corporations, or Russian and Chinese oligarchs! To avoid this, perhaps the inheritance tax could be paid as a sharehold of the estate, to be owned by the government, for the public good. That way the public would have its say in how the estate is managed, for ecological good, right-to-roam, organic farming etc.
The public good nowadays would remove the deer, horses and sheep and cover the land with wind and solar farms. No thank you. I like the way the aristocracy pass on their knowledge of land management down the generations, send their children to Agricultural College and and produce the country houses and scenery that we love. I notice that Golf Courses were not discussed in the first half by which time I gave up listening due to the Global Warming / Carbon propaganda!!.
@@tumbleweeduk7479 That's simply excusing the landed gentry! The public good could be anything, but definitely isn't grouse shooting and moorland burning. For myself it would be regenerative agriculture and right to roam. Solar panels should be on rooves before green land.
It’s a catastrophe when a big house looses its old family in many ways. My gran lived through it. A Saudi family bought it as a holiday home, closed off all community access to the park, stopped donating to the church which meant the parish could no longer afford a vicar, and sold off most of the tenanted houses destroying a few lives in the process. As of two years ago when we buried her they’d got to the point of putting beware of the dog posters up and fencing off the churchyard which previously had a clean view of the park. Truly soul destroying to see. That said I agree the status quo isn’t good either. Some kind of collaboration between the ministry for agriculture and fisheries, the county council farms, the mod, and the old families estates seems most logical to me. Could have been discussed with a Corbyn Labour gov but I’m not confident about the current lot. They seem too much like spivs to care enough. Also the county council farms have been selling off lots to cope with austerity which is another tragedy for wannabe young agriculturalists
There is no ingeritance tax on businesses. An estate is usually an agricultural business, so inheritance tax on an entire estate is low - usually something like a 10% loss per generation. But, HMRC will accept heritage gifts in lieu of tax. Therefore much of the 10% potential loss can be avoided by gifting a painting or two, for example, to the nation. This is a tax loophole for the ultra-wealthy, and how estates have remained intact through the last few generations during the period where ineritance tax has been in place. Why should these estates not be broken up? Why should anyone have a birthright to abject wealth, and why should the wealthy be able to avoid their due contribution to the wider social fund with such impunity? Our system of land ownership is obviously unjust.
@@basilmagnanimous7011 Doesn't sound simple to me. Some Scandinavian countries have very little private land ownership, with the majority belonging to the state. Imagine a Govt. making all decisions besed primarily on long-term sustainability, and owning all the land, and you're well on the way to Utopia. Obviously, short-term commercial interests always prevail and this will never happen, but it's good to have dreams...
This was fascinating, thank you.
Why didnt the BBC get Guy to talk sense when all the Farmers inheritence tax mayhem erupted on the news with all the Clarkson's devious media statements
What?
Can you do something on the reduction of farming tenancy places? Specifically in County Council farms arising from some sales during austerity? Finding a place to farm is so hard now, mostly because of the estates selling up but it’s not helped by the reduction of the already limited council farm places
We may have lost wildflower meadows but we've gained solar farms.
Very illuminating discussion! I will buy two copies of the book for our house and for my mum.
The only thing that I didn't hear was an Ask for the Labour gobernment of the next five years. How will they legislate for nature and against practices such as grouse shooting? How will they challenge the current land ownership situation?
Thanks as ever 😊
Nature isn't a vote winner - and the landowners are at the heart of Govt to skew all the rules to their own advantage. The vast majority of voters don't care enough for nature to be a political issue - and real environmentalism (rather than the current box-ticking PR) is at odds with the "growth economy" which all parties tell us is absolutely essential. Anyone can start at home by seriously minimising their consumption and going vegan. Almost nobody actually does this. They all want a weekend in New York for Christmas shopping, fast food via UberEats, a £7K hot tub on the patio and a brand new car every three years. The selfish and willfully ignorant majority will be the masters of their own demise. A knighthood is only ever awarded for dutifully serving the interests of the Establishment, and the freebies scandal exposes where the greatest political influence really lies. Starmer will do no better for the environment than the last lot of crooks and liars. The Establishment runs the show, with politics as a peeling veneer of supposed democracy.
Recently read a brilliant book by Nick Hayes called 'The Book of Trespass ordinary people kicked off the land that sustained them, hunti g animals to feed themselves became 'poaching' which was illegal....A good read,
We can't feed 80,000,000 people with hunting or arable subsistence farming. The root cause of all environmental problems is over-population. Nature was once our life support system. The economy has taken nature's place as the force which sustains us.
At first I thought this was anecdotal… Every summer I drive through France. The front of my car is caked in insect matter. That never happens in the UK anymore. And also the amount of butterflies is visibly different. What are they doing differently other than not having the 1% owning all their land?
We are masters of our own demise. Nature is a balanced system. Our complete domination of it will be temporary. When that system finally collapses, so will the human population. There will be a "great reset" in the near future. There will be no recovery of nature without this happening.
This is a very complex subject. So much damage has been done and there is absolutely no way these big, rich landed gentry landowners are suddently going to hand the land back to the peasants. Many people are keen to grow and supply food organically, or at least more naturally , without the use of damaging pesticides, produced on small farms not huge industrialized conglomerate farms, but the supermarkets squeeze the life out of most small growers leaving only room for the Duchy of Cornwall (that's our 'organic loving' king's outfit) and intensive growers. It's nice to have the conversation but I fear its too late. England's green and pleasant land is being and has been decimated by greed and this govt with its deranged plans for more solar farms and wind farms, plus loosening of planning laws.. spells even more disaster. As for the Victorians.they invented some good things but blasting game birds in their thousands out of the sky and killing of indigenous wild life of all kinds was not one of them,.
2000 acres of Dartmoor apparently belong to a guy specialises in hedge funds so at least obviously means well, protecting important nesting sites.
On Guy’s point about more people having an awareness of and appreciation for nature after lockdown. That’s me precisely, used to hate the idea of gardening, but started it in lockdown as I had to spend time in my garden.
We’ve now moved house and I have put in a greenhouse to grow veg and revamped the garden.
Thank you Guy for explaining this dangerous behavior of the privileged land owners and the
The unfair and stupid tax breaks they have enjoyed 😮
wealth envy is very ugly.
There is an urgent need to develop linked strategies in all the major areas of our lives - farming, housing, employment and industry, health and social care to name a few. The link has to be basic human values: the valuing and respect of all people and the contribution they can make to the common good. Wishful thinking perhaps but nonetheless a goal to aim for even if we don't achieve it all.
Really interesting topic, and great interview. Anyone interested in the bit about the fens should go to the Oliver Cromwell museum in Ely - he was the MP for the area at the time (of the draining) and campaign for compensation for the fenlanders
As if we needed any more evidence that landlords are arseholes.
Only big land owners have permitted development in the countryside. Everyone else can barely do anything and you certainly can't build houses in the countryside which is why we have a housing crisis in rural areas and increasingly less farms as they are turned into air bnbs or little estates for the wealthy folk from London or wherever. Local people have no chance of being able to own a house.
Class consciousness was never britains strong suit
I don't think most humans are very strong in the class department sadly. I come from Poland, which suffered greatly due to egregiously greedy and incompetent elites...yet all our official history lauds them as "best poland had to offer". All we preserve are lavish palaces - which usually presided over crushing poverty in surrounding lands. Poland had old school feudalism going long after other countries in Europe started developing some early form of rights for its populace
We need a green asset seizure and protection act
Salmon has declined through issues in the Atlantic and netting stations at the mouth of the rivers. In catchments sensitive farming areas landowners have to try to stop agric run off while the government are asking them to produce cheap food, to gain subsides. Water companies are the issue.
We also pay the aviation industry to pollute...supported by demand from our post-colonial elite of frequent flyers that just have to have keep on with their little trips with no apparent awareness of their privilege. Most people in this country hardly fly at all. 80% of the world don't fly at all. Imagine if they did??
Mob grazing can increase stock density whilst increasing biodiversity (Fir farm in Gloucestershire). This also reduced their vet bills and increased carbon sequestration.
The countryside the NHS, the economy, our savings our electricity our water our jobs our society our democracy our country.
So why are they blaming everything to Migrants.
Tell them too
look in their own backyard for the inequality & dirty laundry.
And grouse go to the game dealer and are very cheap 6 quid a brace ,pheasants 2 quid a brace ,the birds are worth next to nothing unless they are being shot at
Old saying: up goes a guinea, bang goes sixpence, down comes half-a-crown.
Guinea being the cost of raising a pheasant, sixpence the cost of a cartridge, Half a crown what the butcher will pay for the carcass. The remaining eighteen shillings was the value of the rich mans sport.
I saw red squirrels for the first ever time, this year, in Germany.
We lost wildflower meadows when horses stopped being used for transport. Meadows must be either grazed or cut for hay to not turn into woodland/scrub. Most farmers use silage instead of traditional hay now which is cut to often for flowers to establish. Traditional hay meadows aren't ploughed or seeded, just cut once or twice a year and maybe grazed over winter. Horses are still fed hay. We need more traditionally kept horses and ruminants if we want wildflowers back on a large scale.
These landowners are entitled - literally. Maybe we should look at entitlement itself ? Mi lud.
Thank you for this!
Those opening comments hit me hard here in Canada. Watching the forests I spent hours alone in as a child get cut down for housing is like getting a piece of your soul ripped out.
I also agree that while tackling climate change is important, the destruction of ecosystems "the web of life itself" is always overlooked in favor of GDP growth, and I feel mad and powerless.
When all our politicians talk about investment, this is exactly what they mean.
Foreign or elite owned land. And labour are no different at encouraging it.
America says "you think you are unequal, hold our beer"
Do kid your self there are no green Tories the only green they are worried about is the green of their money 😊
Responsible land ownership works well at Parish council levels borough and county councils,county conservation bodies.These organisations should recive the 9billion in payouts because they are actively maintaining SSSi and nature reserves.
You folks need to look at the history of England in Ireland to understand how land and wealth was appropriated. And the first slaves in the Caribbean were Irish sent there
"indentured servants".
@@janebaker966 …. Thank you
Burning heather isn’t affecting the stored carbon in the peat below ground
The uplands used to be covered in trees.
burning heather above ground:
- releases carbon into the atmosphere in and of itself
- removes vegetation, preventing new peat from accumulating, turning the bog from a carbon sink to a carbon source
- prevents ecological succession from taking place (this is the purpose of these burns!), thereby preventing the possibility of more carbon sequestration by woodlands
- prevents the growth of tree roots which help to aggregate and bind the soil together, contributing to the erosion of the peat
- because fewer trees are present to cycle water back into the atmosphere by evapotranspiration, and the soil is looser and more permeable, contributes to flooding during heavy rainfall
- turns areas of land which have the potential to develop into diverse habitats into effectively monocultures, disrupting carbon and nutrient cycling through the food web.
Everything in an ecosystem is delicately interconnected. You can't remove one part of the ecosystem (e.g. surface vegetation) without disrupting the whole system.
Excellent Interview!
When relatives of mine trained as nurses in the big London hospitals in the 1930s pre-NHS, rich donors used to send the game they shot on their estates to the hospitals for patients and staff to eat. Landowners today would be charging top price.
My understanding is that most of the birds go into landfill.
@@patcampton7163 that's awful.
@@patcampton7163 Absolutely true. They make a "stink pit" and then shoot the animals and birds which come for the carrion. It's not legal to sell food with lead shot in it. A few birds are eaten by participants and locals but the majority are wasted. It's a commercial "sport" and not commercial poultry farming. If you buy pheasant flesh at a shop, it didn't originate from a game shoot.
@@patcampton7163 no they don't, small shoots the guns and beaters eat them. Big commercial shoots most of the pheasants get sold to game dealers.
@@patcampton7163 no they do not. Small shoots the participants eat them. Bit commercial shoots sell them to game dealers.
A perfect example of the "nominative determinism" effect - guy with the word "Shrub" in his surname turns out to be an environmentalist.
Wheat and barley grown to feed farmed animals uses 40% of the UK's arable land area.
Time to move away from animal agriculture, use the land to grow food for us directly, and repurpose non productive land for vertical farming, barn mushroom farming, and rewilding.
But the subsidies need to change to make all this possible, and nothing will change if we keep eating so much meat and dairy.
This comment should be pinned
@@crapisniceNo this comment just proves that how out of touch the general public are with what is actually happening in agriculture, the last Tory government in England stopped all subsidies for grain production and you didn’t even know it.
@@CharlesYeo-qs6nb Aye, let's just forget about the £1.5 billion spent directly on livestock subsidies shall we?
@@CharlesYeo-qs6nb the fact remains that animal agriculture is incredibly destructive (air and water pollution) and has an insatiable appetite for water, land and crops that are best fed to humans directly. This is even before considering the toll on the climate and human health.
@@MoniqueRBuckner When people like you spread your information that is all fabricated to make you life choices acceptable don’t bother me thanks. One example water consumption is fabricated by calculating all the rainfall that lands on grassland for meat production when 85% of that water goes into rivers lakes and reservoirs, and is not needed for grass production and the land is in grass to stop erosion.
Clarkson's Farm is really good. At the end of every season, he explains how difficult it is to be a Farmer because they lose so much money every year. He does campaign and speak to people in government.
He has a good manager.
You think so? I feel as though it’s a wealthy city boy choosing to swan into a profession that’s my birthright because he fancies it. Meanwhile I, and thousands and thousands like me, can’t begin to afford to continue our family industry since our farms were sold from under us by the big houses in the last century. Even just living in the villages we used to farm is a luxury for city retirees now
Also it heavily relies on the whole “look at the funny West Country lad get confused and talk plainly” trope. You could rip it to shreds on a critical class analysis
A Guy with Shrub in his surname is so so good for this role.
Also these accolades from Aaron in the beginning are just so heartwarming to be honest. I always knew you were a sweetheart. Everyone else is just too thick to see it.
Nominative determinism in action
i love those estate villages with all the doors painted same colour.They are so well kept.
Thanks that was really interesting and informative ❤
In Clarksons defence he says in puts 500 acres of land to conservation and does grow wild flower meadows
Materialists and hypocrites ran over Native Americans and Chief Seattle told them they had no future because they were ruining the environment and their habits and ways were destructive because they did not know what sacred living is.He said when your troubles go over your heads you can ask us and we will try to help.
Absolutely, and look how right they were, that country is only the largest exporter of food in the world... wait that doesn't make sense
@@PJH13 You're literally describing overconsumption. Monoculture fields cover 80 percent of agricultural and arable land. It's not sustainable.
Well,since COVID numerous fires at food processing plants and other "accidents" have made actual store cupboard basic foodstuffs stupidly expensive in the USA. The price for 6 eggs in USA does not compare with the price in Britain or Europe. The supposed high output efficient USA farming our farmers were urged by political administrations to follow us now bust and broken. That Chief Seattle speech was written in 1970 by a white academic at a USA university called Ted.
@@_S_I_ Our entire way of life is unsustainable - every aspect of it. The global population has doubled in the last fifty years. That's not sustainable. The growth economy is not sustainable. We in the "developed north" enjoy abject wealth compared to our recent ancestors and those in undeveloped nations, but this is all due to a four hundred year blip in history enabled exclusively by fossil fuel wealth. "Peak civilisation" came in about 1994 in this country. The developed world is now on the slide. In the future we will be returned, against our will and probably by destructive and chaotic means, to agrarian subsistence.
@@PJH13 American agriculture is not a success story. It is a story of grotesque pollution of the land and sea (by agricultural run-off) and irrigation of many regions with groundwater which is dwindling.
I’m gonna read the book. Thanks for your hard work
No one talks about this stuff with each other.
Where is the discussion?? Or am I missing it?
1773 the enclosure act when the land was stolen
It wasn't the Newbury bypass that made Swampy a household name. Swampy was in the tunnels at the Fairmile Road protests.
Guy said he remembered him at Newbury as he lived there. He is maybe too young to know about the earlier stuff.
THEY JUST DO NOT CARE ABOUT NATURE OUTLAW LAWLESS ABOVE THE LAWS
Is it time to start naming these elites?
They already are. Just look on wiki at the Dukedoms and Earldoms and Baronetcies. Then look at the current holders of those titles and you’ve already found about 70% of the 1%
This not easy to build a house on rural land as the law requirements is so high, especially you need to access the roads. But as outside-the-grid technologies are more available (solar, starlinks). Its time to find some way to ease those laws or help the public to build more house in rural areas. e.g. Gave them subsidies or loose some restriction so they can explore more lands.
Amazing content!!❤ from Canada
Fascinating, thanks
Everyone in the UK needs to see this!!
yes because it is a perfect example of manipulation of the truth for political gain.