Owen Patterson - an MP past his sell-by date?

[Richard Tarleton]

Thank you for this A_I_C. Yes but I confess not for a while, though I have been following the story. My point about sheep and biodiversity in the uplands, which I made in reply to Anna's post, stands, in fact you make it for me as well. Remove or exclude sheep from the uplands and you eventually get woodland, dwarf shrubs, a more diverse flora, more birds, small mammals.... I had better make no comment re the FC but excluding sheep is the challenge. Re-wilding is an emotive term, and obviously it's not really going to be wilderness without top predators, among other things.

My main example was Wales, and Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons in particular. Like the fells much of them were once covered in forest.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

..and following on from the documentary about the impact of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone last night [very positive impact on trees and beavers because they held back the presence of elk in water meadow type lands and bears loved their leftovers ] ... i would like to ask if we had wolves in Britain when it was forested?

[Richard Tarleton]

calum, wolves were exterminated in England and Wales around 1500. We also had bear and lynx in earlier times.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

them bloody Tudors innit!

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Thank you for this A_I_C. Yes but I confess not for a while, though I have been following the story. My point about sheep and biodiversity in the uplands, which I made in reply to Anna's post, stands, in fact you make it for me as well. Remove or exclude sheep from the uplands and you eventually get woodland, dwarf shrubs, a more diverse flora, more birds, small mammals.... I had better make no comment re the FC but excluding sheep is the challenge. Re-wilding is an emotive term, and obviously it's not really going to be wilderness without top predators, among other things.

My main example was Wales, and Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons in particular. Like the fells much of them were once covered in forest.

But where are you going with this? Sure, we could get the forests back to the uplands (I doubt much above 1,500'), and there'd be lots of cuddly animals, birds, etc. and it would all be lovely. But then, why the uplands? Why not the lowlands, where there's more people to enjoy this new paradise? And just what date are we taking this back to, and who decides this? It could be argued that we've got the uplands back to where they were just after the last ice-age when the forest areas were very small. Compare the new landscapes of Iceland at the fringes of the Vatnjokull to a valley like Borrowdale - bare hillsides, cultivated valley floors, small farms running sheep and cattle; they're much the same, only the Iceland example has never gone through the woodland period. (The stunning differences are the glaciation features such as moraines which in Iceland are newly revealed and easier to spot).

[eighthobstruction]

OT I'm afraid, but I have just got an up date from my MP re the Forestry Fiasco of 2010....giving me a 'Ministerial Statement' ref Govt Policy on Woodland anf Forestry[but ending with a paragraph which begins 'Todays statement is not the final word on everything']

Here's the actual report http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications...-statement.pdf

[Richard Tarleton]

But where are you going with this? Sure, we could get the forests back to the uplands (I doubt much above 1,500'), and there'd be lots of cuddly animals, birds, etc. and it would all be lovely. But then, why the uplands? Why not the lowlands, where there's more people to enjoy this new paradise? And just what date are we taking this back to, and who decides this? It could be argued that we've got the uplands back to where they were just after the last ice-age when the forest areas were very small. Compare the new landscapes of Iceland at the fringes of the Vatnjokull to a valley like Borrowdale - bare hillsides, cultivated valley floors, small farms running sheep and cattle; they're much the same, only the Iceland example has never gone through the woodland period. (The stunning differences are the glaciation features such as moraines which in Iceland are newly revealed and easier to spot).

My original point, in answer to Anna's, related solely to sheep-grazing on the uplands which results in species-poor grassland. Where sheep-grazing is excluded, for example in Cwm Idwal, biodiversity improves dramatically. You see what more of it could be like, were it not for sheep.

I don't propose to get into a discussion of re-wilding, on which there is as you obviously know much debate and a huge literature. I'm sorry I even mentioned it. Nothing could be further from my mind than cuddly animals, and as you know the fauna and flora of the uplands, wooded or otherwise, is quite different to that of the lowlands. With global warming it's likely to change anyway, with Arctic species under threat. But that is for another thread, if not message board. So having probably offended Anna mightily by being rude about the Welsh uplands I'd probably better not say any more.

[Anna]

So having probably offended Anna mightily by being rude about the Welsh uplands I'd probably better not say any more.

No offence taken Richard and it is a fascinating debate. I see eighthobs has now started a new thread about the Forestry report.
Going back briefly to the horsemeat, it seems the FSA do not check processing plants at all, this is left to the local authorities (trading standards I assume) and to the supermarkets involved although in the case of Comigel (source of the Findus lasagne and now implicated under another brand name of horse lasagne in Germany) I have no idea of the French system of testing processing, or if indeed they do have a system of testing the processing. What has shocked me is the vast distances meat covers, half of Europe it seems, before it's finally turned into ready meals plus the downsizing of the FSA.

[eighthobstruction]

>>>' I have no idea of the French system of testing processing, or if indeed they do have a system of testing the processing'<<< Anna

....Surely rule of thumb ref cheese is that if it has flowed 6" from the rind and there are maggots in it, it is time to scrape the maggots out and eat it....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't know whether this has been mentioned on the Richard III thread, but since they found RIII's bones, they've been digging up the car park in the Leicester branch of Tesco, looking for his horse.

[amateur51]

No offence taken Richard and it is a fascinating debate. I see eighthobs has now started a new thread about the Forestry report.
Going back briefly to the horsemeat, it seems the FSA do not check processing plants at all, this is left to the local authorities (trading standards I assume) and to the supermarkets involved although in the case of Comigel (source of the Findus lasagne and now implicated under another brand name of horse lasagne in Germany) I have no idea of the French system of testing processing, or if indeed they do have a system of testing the processing. What has shocked me is the vast distances meat covers, half of Europe it seems, before it's finally turned into ready meals plus the downsizing of the FSA.

And of course one of the many things that have been cut off at the knees as a result of Govt cuts too far & too fast were the local authority inspectors. You couldn't make it up!

[Resurrection Man]

Has anyone else noted the coincidence....

FSA...tasked with protecting the financial health of the nation

FSA ...tasked with protecting the food health of the nation

[Nick Armstrong]

Has anyone else noted the coincidence....

FSA...tasked with protecting the financial health of the nation

FSA ...tasked with protecting the food health of the nation

FSA (rhymes with "neigh") coming across pretty pathetically in the Panorama on the subject on now. Worth a watch.

First time I've seen Patterson of the House: bit of a stuffed shirt, ain't he?

[ahinton]

Has anyone else noted the coincidence....

FSA...tasked with protecting the financial health of the nation

FSA ...tasked with protecting the food health of the nation

Oh, don't you worry; if no one else has (which I take leave to doubt), I noticed it some time ago and sadly have good reason so to have done! No more said...

[Flosshilde]

No, of course not jean. We cannot grow oranges (or pineapples, bananas or lemons) here, there has always been a historical trade in such fruits.

Not quite true - the aristocracy have been able to grow exotic fruit (perhaps not bananas) for some time. Orangeries are a feature in many gardens (there's a particularly fine one at Kensington Palace, designed by Hawkesmore) & pineapples have been grown since the 17th century - as this picture of the royal gardener presenting King Charles II with the first pineapple to be grown in England demonstrates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ro...erts_1675.jpeg